“Words, Words, Words”: Mourid Barghouti’s Appropriation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in I Saw Ramallah

Abstract This article examines Mourid Barghouti’s appropriation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1603) in his memoir I Saw Ramallah published originally in Arabic in 1997 and translated into English in 2000. The memoir documents his temporary return to Palestine after 30 years of exile and his criticism of the delusional life of Palestinians post Oslo accords which, as he argues, undermined the rights of Palestinians for autonomy, sovereignty and self-determination. Barghouti associates post-Oslo Palestinians with the fictional figure of Hamlet who is unpacking his heart with words rather than taking action against Claudius. According to Barghouti, Hamlet’s merry jests and laughter have striking similarities with many post-Oslo Palestinians who romanticize their injuries, turning their defeat into victory and their tragedy into comedy. Furthermore, Barghouti associates his feeling of displacement and internal exile with that of Hamlet who is displaced in his homeland, Denmark. Both Hamlet and Barghouti retreat behind the wall of silence and turn their exile and displacement into a subjective space of creativity and critical consciousness. We argue that Barghouti writes the Palestinian present through the classic, and we illustrate that Barghouti’s I Saw Ramallah has rendered the personal and national larger and global, permitting the specific and multifarious Palestinian oppression to be understood on grander scales. Thus, I Saw Ramallah suggests broad ethical messages, gerneralizing the Palestinian struggle to the level of significant moral questions of oppression, injustice and valor.