Hamlet's Prison

       Men in prison live out there lives reflecting on the crimes they committed in the past. Many come back, rehabilitated, to live in our society. Others, who have committed such atrocities hide behind concrete walls in four by four cells for the rest of their lives.

     The men in this Missouri state penitentiary are acting out Hamlet. A play that touches on revenge, honor, and even crime itself. In Shakespeare play, Hamlet, ponders long hours on his duty, on his vengeance, and on the consequences involved in the acts he plans to commit. Here we face tough criminals trying to learn his lines. Men who no longer have the chance of going back in time and making the right choice. As Hamlet thinks, these men live out the consequences. They are the future of Hamlet's actions and no matter how bad they want to convince Hamlet to stop his plan, they can't. Its all written in the book, his fate is set and as they go scene by scene they find themselves identified with the different characters present. It was shocking to see how guilt rushed through the inmates as they read Claudius's repent. When they recalled the names of the men they'd murdered their voices broke down. Claudius and Hamlet were just like them, they saw themselves within each one of those characters like if they were just self portraits. Would they be forever prisoners of their actions? No. I could hear in their voices how this endeavor and the time in prison had affected them. They were new men with dreams and hopes just like us. Even after they recognized how they had been rehabilitated the question still popped back up. Did they deserve to come back to society? To be our neighbors? Our friends? Most said they didn't deserve it, they didn't owe society an apology. They owed just what they had taken, a life. Their life.