The Cambridge Dictionaries define power as “the ability or right to control people or events, or to influence the way people act or think in important ways” (“Power”). In other words, power can mean the strength necessary to do something or the authority required to do it. When someone has the power of life or death, they have power over a person or people, so it also can mean dominance or superiority. That power has to come from somewhere, and to me, that somewhere is inside a person. No one can have power over someone else unless they agree to it, or are forced to. Power is the strength a person has that they can hold, use, abuse, or give up to someone else to do the same.
The idea of power has been with me so long, I no longer remember where it came from. I can hear the words, but whether it was television, something I overheard, something someone told me, I do not know. I do know it is impossible for me to think about power without the words, “You got to own your own power, baby,” and that I hear them in a kind, caring voice of instruction. The words came back to me a few years ago. A person who had been my friend shared a painful secret with someone I really did not like. They became very good friends, bonding over mocking me. It hurt me and I could not stop thinking about it. It messed me up so much I got sick. While I was getting better, my aunt came over. I told her what happened and she said that I had to stop giving them the power to hurt me. That is when the words came back, and since then, I try to remember them and my great aunt whenever I feel I am letting other people make choices for me or influence me in a way I do not like. It has made me more aware of when someone is asking me to give up power and helps me decide what to do.
That is not a true story, but it could be. It could be the story of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Change friends for mother and uncle, change secret for intimacy, and poor Hamlet is the me in my story. He is sick with grief over his father’s death, but even sicker because his mother has married his father’s brother. He cannot stop thinking about it, until his uncle and his mother have to give him a “talking-to” about how “unmanly” it is (Shakespeare I.ii.297). He lets himself be persuaded to stay instead of going back to Wittenberg, because “his greatness weigh’d, his will is not his own” (I.iii.501). In other words, he has a duty because of his noble birth. While he is still mulling it over, he learns from his Father’s Ghost that Claudius, his uncle, murdered him. The Ghost reminds him he has a duty to his father, as well as to the King, then tells him “you got to own your own power, baby”: “If thou have nature in thee, bear it not” (I.i.819). Even though the Ghost exercises his own power to influence Hamlet, he no longer has the power to avenge himself. If his murder is going to be avenged, Hamlet has to own who he is as prince of Denmark, act like a prince instead of a grieving son and take action. Eventually, he takes power i the symbolic act of using his father’s seal. He has owned his power as son, prince, and man. Hamlet’s power is limited by his role as prince, but only as long as he believes that he has a responsibility to Denmark. Since he believes it to the end, he has to pass that power to someone else, and because he’s been impressed with him, he gives his dying vote to Fortinbras.
My story could also be the story of Ophelia. Hamlet has been courting her and she believes he loves her. When Laertes, her brother, prepares to leave and go back to France, he tells her that she should be careful with Hamlet. She asks him why, and he tells her that Hamlet may think he loves her, but “[h]e may not, as unvalued persons do, [c]arve for himself, for on his choice depends [the] safety and health of this whole state” (I.iii.503-5). Laertes basically tells her that the King and the state are one, and so the prince is the future of the state. He does not get to do whatever he wants, because everything he does will affect Denmark. Laertes also tells her that giving herself to Hamlet is her choice. It is within her power to decide, but her choices will have consequences. “You got to own your own power, baby,” is what he means when he says “Then weigh what loss your honor may sustain, [i]f with too credent ear you list his songs, [o]r lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open, [t]o his unmast’red importunity” (i.iii.513-16). Throughout the play, Ophelia does what other people ask: to stop seeing Hamlet, to give up her letters from Hamlet, and to talk to Hamlet to see if loving her is what has driven him mad. She gives up her power again and again, until finally her lover kills her father. Her personal power is limited because she is a woman. Ophelia believes she has only Hamlet’s choice “to be or not to be” (III.i.1749). It might seem like giving up her power when she chooses to die, but it is not. She uses the little power she has to choose the possibility of heaven over the hell that is her life.
Like my made-up great-aunt, Shakespeare has a lot to say about power in Hamlet. In my life, owning my power means being aware of the choices that I have and not letting anyone make them for me. Unlike Hamlet, I do not have to consider my parents, my country, and my people every time I breathe. Even so, Hamlet gave up a lot of power by thinking and overthinking everything and when he finally decided to act, the hope of a positive resolution was lost. Ophelia acted out of duty, too, but unlike Hamlet she did not think everything to death. Instead, she took her father and brother’s advice to the letter, while missing the point that the choice and the power was hers. If she were me, she might have been able to set that right and learn from it, but in her day, the opportunities to claim her power were too limited. Other characters in Hamlet are used to talk about the same theme of power and duty, like Laertes and Fortinbras. In the end, power is the ability to make choices or choose for others, it comes from within or from others giving it up, and even though it is not part of that ability, it should be used with responsibility.
- “Power.” Cambridge Dictionaries Online. Web. Oxford: Cambridge UP, 2016.
- Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Web. OpenSourceShakespeare. George Mason University, n.d.
