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Chapter 8
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Hamnet, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Loss and Grief
Fate and Fortune
Freedom, Restraint, and Genius
The Power of Love
Identity, Choice, and Sacrifice
Summary
Analysis
In 1596, three loud knocks summon Hamnet to the door. The specter that awaits him when he opens it—a black-clad figure wearing a long, beaked mask—is truly terrifying. Mary pushes him aside, inviting the creature—the physician—in to examine Judith. He refuses and then hands Mary a bundle, telling her to tie it around Judith’s waist for three days to draw out the pestilence. Agnes bangs open her window and demands to know what it contains. Hamnet suddenly realizes that, although the doctor speaks politely, he dislikes Agnes, because her herbal treatments draw away some of his business. Hamnet worries that the adult world is far more complicated than he thinks he can understand. Agnes tries to refuse the bundle, an ineffective dried toad, but Mary takes it from the physician politely.
The physician arrives as a figure of terror rather than of hope; his black clothing and uncanny mask—an ineffective respirator used to hold herbs believed to ward off the plague—foreshadows death rather than recovery. Moreover, it seems clear that even if he came in goodwill, he can do little to help Judith with his superstitious and ineffective cures. In this era of pre-modern medicine, the plague was almost uniformly fatal. While it’s clear that neither Mary nor Agnes believe that the dried toad will help, their different reactions point toward their attitudes to society. Mary doesn’t want to offend the doctor, so she plays along; Agnes, who doesn’t care about social niceties, doesn’t try to hide her disdain.
Themes
