Hamlet

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Hamlet

Plot: Old Hamlet, king of Denmark, is recently dead,

and his brother Claudius has assumed the throne and married his widow Gertrude. Young Hamlet, returning from university at Wittenberg, learns from the ghost of his father that Claudius murdered him by pouring poison into his ear, and is commanded to avenge the murder without injuring Gertrude.

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Hamlet

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Hamlet

Hamlet warns his friend Horatio and the guards Barnardo and Marcellus (who have also seen the apparition) that he intends to feign madness, and swears them to secrecy.

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Hamlet

Immediately after his famous speech of deliberation beginning “ To be, or not to be ” (III. i) he repudiates Ophelia, whom he has loved, while spied on by Claudius and by Ophelia's father

Polonius.

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Hamlet

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Hamlet

He welcomes a troupe of visiting players, and arranges a performance of a play ( “ the Mouse-trap ” ) about fratricide, which Claudius breaks off, in apparently guilty and fearful fury, when the player Lucianus appears to murder his uncle by pouring poison into his ear. Hamlet refrains from killing Claudius while he is at prayer, but stabs through the arras in his mother's bedroom, killing the old Counsellor Polonius, before reprimanding his mother for her affection for Claudius.

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Hamlet

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Hamlet

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Hamlet

Claudius sends Hamlet to England with sealed orders that he should be killed on arrival. Hamlet outwits him, however, returning to Denmark, having arranged the deaths of his old friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstem, who were his uncle's agents.

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Hamlet During Hamlet's absence Ophelia has gone mad

with grief from Hamlet's rejection of her and her father's death, and is found drowned.

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Hamlet Her brother Laertes, having returned from France,

determines to avenge his sister's death. Hamlet and Laertes meet in the graveyard where Ophelia is to be buried, and fight in her grave. Claudius arranges a fencing match between Hamlet and Laertes, giving the latter a poisoned foil; an exchange of weapons results in the deaths of both combatants, not before Gertrude has drunk a poisoned cup intended for her son, and the dying Hamlet has succeeded in killing Claudius. Fortinbras, prince of Norway, whose resolute military heroism has been alluded to throughout the play, appears fresh from wars with Poland and gives Hamlet a military funeral.

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Hamlet

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HamletTheme: Shakespeare, in this play, puts forward the

image of Hamlet as a humanist of the Renaissance. He has an unbounded love for the world, nature and man; he loves good, hates evil, and is free from medieval prejudices and superstitions; he shows a contempt for rank and wealth; he is a man of genius, highly accomplished and educated; he is a scholar, soldier, and statesman. His image reflects the versatility of the man of the Renaissance.

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Hamlet

His weakness is his melancholy, but in spite of his melancholy and delay in action, Hamlet still retains his active energy. His learning, wisdom, noble nature, limitation and tragedy are all representative of the humanists at the turn of the 16th and the 17th centuries.

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Hamlet

This play also exposes a corrupted court. Shakespeare condemns the hypocrisy, treachery and general corruption at the royal court by revealing the power-seeking, the hidden motives, the courteous superficialities that veil lust and guilt.

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Hamlet

(from ACT III Scene I A room in the castle)

To be, or not to be1: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles2, And by opposing end them3. To die, to sleep — No more — and by a sleep to say we end The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks

Notes: 1. To be, or not to be: to live on in this world or to die; to suffer or to take action, which reveals the inner contradiction of the hero 2. take arms against a sea of troubles: to take up arms against troubles that sweep upon us like a sea 3. by opposing end them: end them by opposing

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Hamlet

That flesh is heir to4! 'Tis a consummation5 Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep — To sleep — perchance6 to dream: ay, there's the rub7, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil8, Must give us pause9. There's the respect10 That makes calamity of so long life:

4. heir to: certain to receive 5. consummation: completion of one's life 6. perchance: perhaps 7. the rub: “ rub ” is the technical term in the game of bowls for any obstacle which diverts the bowl from its course. Here it refers to obstacle or difficulty. 8. this mortal coil: the turmoil of mortality 9. Must give us pause: Must make us hesitate. The subject is “ What dreams may come. ” 10. respect: consideration

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Hamlet

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time11, Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely12, The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office13, and the spurns That patient merit of th' unworthy takes14, When he himself might his quietus15make With a bare bodkin16? Who would fardels17bear,

11. the whips and scorns of time: the suffering of the world 12. contumely: contempt 13. The insolence of office: the contempt held by people of high rank 14. the spurns/ That patient merit of th' unworthy takes: That patient merit takes the spurns of the unworthy. People of the worth endure at the hands of the unworthy. 15. quietus: death 16. bare bodkin: mere dagger 17. fardels: burdens

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Hamlet

To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country, from whose bourn18 No traveler returns, puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience19does make cowards of us all,

18. bourn: boundary 19. conscience: consciousness

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Hamlet

And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought20, And enterprises of great pitch and moment21, With this regard their currents turn awry22, And lose the name of action — Soft you now, The fair Ophelia! — Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remembered.

20. thought: anxiety 21. pitch and moment: significance and importance 22. their currents turn awry: The subject of “ turn ” is “ enterprises ” , and object is “ currents ” . It means “ turn away from their original purpose ” .

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