Quote Analysis

Hamlet, watching the gravedigger sing cheerfully while digging Ophelia's grave, remarks with surprise at the man's apparent indifference to the grim nature of his work.

Hamlet's question expects the answer 'no'—surely the man should feel something—but the phrasing 'no feeling of his business' creates an ambiguity. Does Hamlet mean the gravedigger lacks feeling about death in general, or that he lacks proper professional seriousness? The phrase 'at grave-making' positions singing and digging as simultaneous, the preposition 'at' making the song seem almost instrumental, as if singing is part of the work itself rather than a distraction from it.

Support a thesis that Hamlet's encounter with the gravedigger confronts him with a man who has integrated death into daily life without philosophical crisis—Hamlet's shock at the singing reveals how his own obsession with mortality has kept him from any working accommodation with it.