Before I Forget – Slipknot. 

            Slipknot’s “Before I Forget” can demonstrate the anger Hamlet felt against his uncle when he finally discovered that he was the assassin of his father. After Hamlet asked the actors to perform the Murder of Gonzago in front of king Claudius, he realized by his attitude that the ghost of his father was being honest. Hamlet’s anguish and doubt became anger and hatred after discovering the truth. He needed to avenge the dead of his father. In his mind the only reasonable solution for the problem in which he was immersed was to put an end to the existence and reign of his perverted uncle. After Hamlet discovered that, he found his uncle praying and thought about killing him in that instant. However, killing him in while he was praying would meant that the soul of his uncle was not going to be punished in the afterlife as he desired. The song borrows a very famous quote from Niccolo Machiavelli: “My end, it justifies my means.” This can be connected to Hamlet because the strategies he was using were not very common, however, they were justified. He needed to act before he forgot about his father. He needed revenge; he needed to honour the memory of his father.

Nothing Else Matters – Metallica.  

This song has a direct relationship with the emotional state that Hamlet felt during the beginning of the play. After the death of his father Hamlet felt devastated. He did not felt any sort of happiness. The fact that his mother married his uncle not very long after the death of king Hamlet made Hamlet think that life had no sense. He felt betrayed by his own mother. The song talks about how life acquires the sense we give it, and for Hamlet, whose spirit was corrupted by sadness and anguish, life was nothing more than a chaotic and gloomy existence. For Hamlet nothing else mattered. His father was dead, and nothing could change it. The depravation he observed astonished him. It was revolting to see how his mother could go from one husband onto the next one. The prince of Denmark did not care anymore for what they said, what they did, what they knew. His lack of emotional tranquility shaped everything he did, including the way he talked, acted, and thought. Furthermore, the lack of interest he showed for life reflected what would be the outcome of his tragedy. Deceit and lies are always the leading path for despair and death. And when death comes, in all reality, nothing else matters.

Dead Memories – Slipknot. 

Sadness and melancholy are also universal topics, and finding these two topics in any sort of artistic work is a simple task. However, sadness can take multiple shapes and can be caused by multiple factors. Two of the most important elements that can cause a very profound state of depression and sorrow are deception and mourn. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet there is a character that suffers these two tragic elements, and therefore, is affected and experiences a deep state of dreariness. Ophelia is a character that becomes the victim of fate. Hamlet, affected by his multiple problems and delusions tells Ophelia that his love for her is nothing more that banalities and that she should live life without caring about love. Instead, she should go to a nunnery. Some scenes after, Hamlet murders Ophelia’s father, Polonius. These two events create a lot of negative effect in Ophelia’s soul, so much that she is not able to perceive any type of happiness in her life. Dead Memories, by the American metal band Slipknot, explains this emotional paradigm. The song argues that the only thing left after love is death. There is a very powerful line in the song that explains how after a love deception, the only things that are left are scars and dead memories in the person’s head and heart. After this, there is a rupture between what seems to be two complete different individuals, the blissful past being, and this new miserable and mournful one. That joyful being now seems distant and somehow dead (The other me is dead, I hear his voice inside my head). By drawing this relationship, one can elicit the obvious emotional connection between Hamlet’s fourth act and Slipknot’s tragic song.