Christopher as Hamlet

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I originally found Tony to be a little Hamlet-esque early on in the series, especially in the way in which his mother and Uncle Jun were in cahoots against him. However, those parallels weren't anything to mention.

That being said, there are a few uncanny parallels between the character Hamlet and Chrissy Moltisanti.

-There is the murdered father and desire for revenge.

-Chris creates "Cleaver" just like Hamlet creates the "play within the play" to address his inner feelings about what has been going on. In Hamlet, the character Hamlet makes a play implying that the King was murdered and conspired against by his brother. Hamlet uses the play out of cowardice because he isn't man enough to face his Uncle diirectly and accuse him of regicide. In the same way, Christopher uses Cleaver to surface his loathing of Tony and some of his actions. Namely this occurs in the scene with the boss and the Asian girlfriend in the movie. My wife calls her "Asiana", haha, as a nod that this is the Asian version of Adrianna and a call back to Tony and Ades fling in the car and that Chris has neither forgotten nor forgiven Tony for that.

-Chrissy's mom is very fond of the drink. Queen Gertrude, Hamlet's mother, dies after drinking poisoned wine.

- The strongest evidence, though, that Chase was hinting at a Chrissy/Hamlet parralel was obviouisly in "Cold Cuts"." Specifically when Chris is with Tony B and they are destroying a body as potential evidence. Chris holds up the skulll of the Russian he knocked off. This is one of the most iconic images from Hamlet. Hamlet was in a graveyard with Horatio and holds the skull of his former jester, Yourick. Chris was holding the skull in the same way, with the eyes facing him, looking right into the eye sockets. I was waiting for him to say "Alas, poor Yourick".

As for the all important "Who gives a sh*t" or "Why?" 2 Takeaways.


-Hamlet was plagued by indecision. Paralysis by analysis. Chris' weakness in a similar way was his addictions. It played with his mind and his focus. He battled to stay clean, then relapsed, then cleaned up, relapsed. Just like Hamlet vowed to kill Claudius, then chickened out, then vowed again. Tony sees Chris' relapses and flip flops as weakness and a liability. Thats why he has to go

-More importantly, Chris grows to hate Tony. We saw in one of his ramblings in an AA or NA meeting that he sees Tony as an enabler or possibly even the cause of his drug use. He uses Cleaver or the play within the play just like Hamlet did - to surface the inner feelings he holds because he is too much of a coward to confront Tony face to face. The Cleaver monster is Chris, vowing for revenge against Tony. Chris can kill Tony in the movie, like a video game, but IRL, he can do no more that throw hissy fits at Tony and then storm off.


Some posts here suggest Chris flipped to the feds right before he dies in the car crash. I wouldn't be surprised if Chris actually did flip in the "Kennedy and Heidi" episode. Much more a coward move instead of approaching Tony directly.

Any thoughts?

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