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If you’ve got a skull t-shirt or skull tights or some type of skull patch on your backpack, you could be doing advertising for Shakespeare’s Hamlet. That’s because the most prominent symbol in this play is the symbol of the skull. Check out this Recap for more on what Shakespeare was doing with that.

Video Transcription:

If Shakespeare knew the merchandising opportunities he missed out on with Yorrick’s skull …

… he’d be rolling over in his grave for sure.

Let’s take a look at this symbol—next.

OK. Act V, scene i. Up until this point, Hamlet has definitely done some musing on death. But here, in the graveyard, with Yorick’s skull at hand, our Prince launches into his most extensive meditation on the topic.

Here are a couple things to remember about the symbol of Yorick’s skull.

First, although Hamlet has often lamented life’s uncertainty, he finds, represented in the skull, one grim certainty: the inevitability of death.
?Remember what he says to it: “Now get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favor she must come.”

In other words, try as we might, we can’t avoid death.

Second, remember that Yorick was the court jester.

Significant because Yorick spent his life making others laugh. But in the end, what had the last laugh? Death, of course.

And now the skull smiles at Hamlet—as though to mock his own mortality.

And that leads us to the third aspect of this symbol. Perhaps it’s most relevant as an omen. After all, Hamlet’s death is just one scene away …