“The time is out of joint” (I, v, 210)

This line is spoken by Hamlet at the end of the first act. At this point, Hamlet has just confronted the ghost of his father, and has asked Horatio and Marcellus to swear by his sword that they shall not speak of what they saw that night to anyone. Hamlet has also decided—just before reciting the line—that he will put an “antic disposition” on. Hamlet has just learned from the ghost that his uncle murdered his father, and the ghost wants Hamlet to avenge him. When Hamlet says “the time is out of joint” he is referring to the state in which Denmark has found itself: being led by a man who murdered his brother and committed a regicide. The word “joint” gives us the image of limbs. Limbs are connected by joints (like the shoulder or fingers), so to say that time is out of joint tells us that time has been dislocated or broken; the time is wrong. Following this line, Hamlet states that he is to one who must set time right again: “O cursèd spite/That ever I was born to set it right!

This line is slightly similar to an earlier one said by Marcellus: “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” Both lines show that something has happened in Denmark that is wrong—that has disrupted the natural order of life. The line “The time is out of joint” is demonstrated very clearly in Macbeth when Macbeth killed the king—committing a regicide like Claudius—and suddenly, things were not right; for example, the horses ate each other showing that the natural order of being has been disrupted. In Hamlet, the natural order of being has also been disrupted as a king has been murdered by his own brother and married his brother’s wife, creating a kind of incest. On these three counts, Claudius has wronged the natural order of being, and Hamlet must now make things right.