Hamnet

Hamnet deals with so many deep ideas. Fate, religion, spirits, loss. Agnes has life long dreams of having 2 kids by her on her death bed. Eventually though, she has 3 kids that she loves unbelievably much. Immediately Judith is tried to be taken away from Agnes. But despite the circumstances, she lives. Many years later she contracts the bubonic plague. But it is Hamnet who sees death first. Now before all of this happens Chloè Zhao massively utilizes foreshadowing. When William is setting off to leave for London again, Hamnet is visibly more distraught than usual, so much so that he gives off the feeling like he knows something tragic is going to happen while he is away. Then in London, William encounters the Black Death mask, and then sees a puppet show of 3 people being carried off by a Black Death mask. With Hamnet dying instead of Judith, proves the idea of fate. Maybe not that it was fate that Judith was bound to die, but that Agnes was bound to only have 2 kids at her death bed. After Hamnet is doomed for death we see him in an unfamiliar place with tree’s around him and a door way. In this scene he whistles and blows up and is able to see the passed hawk. This amplifies Agnes refusal of religion and her belief in spirits. She says “I shall do to your church, but I shall not say a word.” This shows how strongly she believes that there is no heaven after death. But she teaches her kids the whistle and blow method for whenever they want to see their hawk. The scene ends with Hamnet walking away into the dark passage way. When Hamnet finally passes on through all of the screaming and ruckus, everything goes silent. Agnes, Hamnet, Judith all stop crying and there is just blankness. Too stunned to even do anything in the moment. William soon gets home and tells Agnes that Hamnet has gone off and they need to go find him. I assume referring to his spirit. We find out that what Hamnet was standing in in the moments of his death, was his fathers set. During William’s final play, Hamnet dies in the end, and his dying words are “The rest is silence.” This was his final way of showing that everybody really is the same in some way. We all freeze when there is nothing else to do. When there is nothing left for you but your thoughts. We can then see Agnes looking off into the distance and finding her Hamnet coming out of the passage. She found him, she finally found her boy and is finally able to come to rest with her pain. Bad scars will never heal, but they can diminish with time.