De La Salle Senior English / Sr. Pat

OVERHEAD ON HAMLET

-Hamlet is Shakespeare’s greatest, most famous and most influential play
-it is most written about, interpreted, and studied work of literature
-it has been analyzed for its aesthetic, moral, political, psychological,
historical, allegorical, logical, religious, and philosophical aspects
-Hamlet supports a variety of interpretations and understandings.
-It is concerned with deep truths about the nature of humanity in the universe
-number of important themes
-Hamlet’s struggle over the question of whether or not to murder
Claudius. (this brings about many other questions)
+What is the relationship in human life between thought and action
+Hamlet’s reflective, contemplative nature renders it impossible for
him to act on his convictions.
+This imbalance between his active and passive natures may be his
“tragic flaw” that makes his fate inevitable
-another theme – the nature of justice and revenge
-the idea that sin must beget retribution
-the line between sanity and madness
-the nature of political power and the connection between the well
begin of the state and the moral condition of its leaders.
-the moral questions of suicide in a malevolent universe (Hamlet
wants to kill himself, but fears God’s wrath in the afterlife)
-the relationship between sons and fathers
-The nature of the family
-The question of truth, of what human beings can cling to in a painful,
unjust, and hostile world
-what gives life meaning and what lasts.
-Hamlet is in love with learning, thought, and reason
-He is driven closer to a wild and unwilling negativity as every facet of his life (religion, society, philosophy, love) fails him or proves false.
-Hamlet’s sanity—does Hamlet actually lose his mind or does he only pretend to (as he claims)
-His decision to pretend that he is mad is a sane decision…a strategic move to confuse his enemies and conceal his intentions.
-but his mind is so troubled, confused, and desperate in the absence of any grounding truth that his pretending assumes the intensity of real madness



ACT 1 scene i and ii

-the play is about seeking the truth—Hamlet will seek to know the truth
about whether the ghost is really his father while trying to figure out whohe himself is as a person
-mood is set, major characters are introduced, background information is presented, exploration of the play’s major themes begins, the plot is set in motion—all within two short scenes
-these two scenes introduce all the major strands that will wind throughout the play
-appearance of the ghost gives the characters the opportunity to tell the audience about the recent death of King Hamlet and the history of the conflict with Poland
-Fortinbras has a grudge against Denmark but will reappear at the end of Act V—he is a perfect parallel to Hamlet and unlike Hamlet is able to take action—his army will march on Poland
-Claudius’s speech informs us of his marriage to Gertrude—Claudius represents the voice of the new society(one who negotiates)—he is the perfect new politician and stands in contrast to Old Hamlet (one who fights)
-Hamlet’s bitterness toward Claudius and his soliloquy establishes his melancholy and desperation over the past events (Father’s death and Mother’s marriage to his uncle)
(Melancholy was traditionally viewed as the cause of madness by physicians of Shakespeare’s time---thus Hamlet’s black clothing serves to foreshadow his future madness)
-revelation of the ghost’s appearance and Hamlet’s decision to confront the ghost
-this confrontation sets in motion the main plot of the play
-this will culminate in Hamlet’s death at the end of Act V
-appearance of the ghost introduces the element of the supernatural into the play and indicates that “the time is out of join”—something is wrong in Denmark
-Hamlet knows that something is wrong is the state of Denmark…he is devastated by his father’s death and betrayed by his mother’s marriage
-Hamlet’s bitterness, his cynicism, his yearning for suicide, and other characters’ remarks about his behavior show us the extent to which Hamlet is not his usual self.
-Hamlet’s soliloquy about suicide brings in what will be a central idea in the play
-the question of the moral validity of suicide in an unbearably painful world will haunt the rest of the play (To be or not to be, that is the question)
-Hamlet decides that no one would choose to live under the conditions of the world if they were not afraid of what will happen to them after death.
-the first soliloquy puts Hamlet at odds with religion…God makes Hamlet fear hell
-we watch the gradual crumbling of the human foundations on which Hamlet’s worldview have been based
-his mind is left with little or nothing to cling to
-religion has failed him
-the shattered grotesquerie of his family can offer him no solace


ACT I scenes iii, iv, v

-Hamlet and Laertes form the most important polarity in the play
-Hamlet’s hesitance and general inability to obtain his father’s revenge will be heavily contrasted with Laertes’s furious willingness to avenge his father’s death.
-the centerpiece of these scenes is the conversations each son has with his father—Laertes with Polonius and Hamlet with the ghost
-Hamlet’s fractured state of mind—he laments his mother’s hasty marriage to his father’s brother
-the normalcy of Polonius’s house appears more striking to the above
-Polonius’s long speech advising Laertes on how to behave in France is over-fatherly, as if to highlight the contrast between what Laertes has and what Hamlet does not have.
-Abnormality of Hamlet’s situation is emphasized in his meeting with his dead father
-Hamlet’s family (father and son) may only interact under supernatural circumstances
-the ghost tells Hamlet—he has been murdered by Claudius, his brother and the very man who is now married to Hamlet’s mother—that until Hamlet obtains revenge on Claudius, he is doomed to and existence of torture in purgatory(a middle world between heaven and hell where the sins are burned away over time)
-The ghost’s demand for revenge upon Claudius sets the main plot of the play into motion
-this leads Hamlet to the idea of pretending his is mad
-this introduces the theme of retributive justice – the idea that sin must be punished
-the idea of retribution haunts the characters throughout the play
-Claudius is guilty—Hamlet avoids suicide—Laertes’s murderous rage after the deaths of Ophelia and Polonius
-Hamlet is a revenge tragedy
-the ghost’s claim to have been murdered by Claudius channels the play into the revenge-tragedy form
-Hamlet is more concerned with thought and moral questioning that with bloody action
-Hamlet questions the appearance of things around him and worries whether he can trust his perceptions…the ghost looks like his father
-he is worried that the ghost may be a demon from hell that has come to deceive him
-central tension in the play is Hamlet’s inability to find anything to believe in as he words his way toward revenge
-before he begins anything—he doubts the authenticity of his father’s ghost and its tragic claim
-Hamlet is under the influence of the king of unwilling, desperate negativism to which he will give in.
-this is a play about watching plays—sentries watching the ghost—Polonius watching Hamlet—Claudius watching the Mousetrap play—which overshadows the fact that Claudius only plays at being the King because he really cannot be the king (killing of King Hamlet)
-Hamlet does not live in this illusion—only he knows what is real—his madness is actually lucidity—his madness speaks truthfully without being punished
-Ophelia is a classic Shakespearean woman who is caught between a strong father and a strong lover… she must choose in the first act whether to obey her love for Hamlet or her father’s orders
-the tragedy for Ophelia is that she chooses her father—by choosing her father, she displays passivity that will lead to her own destruction


ACT II scenes i and ii

-characters become more complex
-Polonius (the loving father) begins to spy on his son
-Hamlet (the thoughtful prince) seems to lose his mind
-the plot thickens—Polonius suspects that Hamlet’s madness is due to his love for Ophelia
-he feels that he has to become involved in this conflict between Hamlet and Claudius because he now blames himself for Hamlet’s madness (not allowing Ophelia to see or be with Hamlet)
-the king and queen hire Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to discover the cause of Hamlet’s strange behavior
-the minds and motives of the characters becomes more difficult to discern
-Polonius seems at times to be turning into a doddering, pompous fool and a sinister manipulator
-Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are baffling characters—they seem undifferentiated from one another and completely ineffective for the king and queen’s purpose
-they are completely transparent to Hamlet
-they are treated as significant characters—they appear throughout the play—news of their deaths is the final tragedy at the end of Act V
-the plot is complicated by the question of Hamlet’s madness
-If Hamlet is pretending to be mad…he is doing almost too good a job at it
-his portrayal is so convincing that the reader does not know what to believe
-is his fragile sanity shattered at the sight of the dead father’s ghost
-although during this seemingly madness, Hamlet makes acute and cutting observations that makes it seem unlikely that he is actually mad
-he is confused and mentally disordered and this confusion translates into an extraordinarily intense, searching quality of mind that leans authenticity to his portrayal of a madman
-Hamlet’s decision to play a madman is a sane one designed to confuse his enemies and hide his intentions as he moves toward avenging his father
-his mental state takes him to the very edge of sanity, and makes his portrayal of madness entirely convincing.


ACT III scenes i and ii

-action is important in this scene because of Hamlet’s inability to act against Claudius until he pretends with the play-with-a-play
-when Hamlet becomes convinced that Claudius is guilty, he will be able to start taking action
-two main events--*Hamlet’s confrontation with Ophelia (first time they have appeared together)--*play-within-a-play which gives Hamlet the opportunity to establish a more definite basis for Claudius’s guilt than the claims of the ghost
-Ophelia has lost her lover (Hamlet) and is reliant on her father
-Hamlet understands that this has happened and is cruel to her
-(when her father dies a the end of this act, Ophelia is left with no one to protect her and eventually goes insane as a result)
-Hamlet and Ophelia – she seems to be the furthest thing from his mind but Hamlet really is in love with Ophelia and not in lustful pursuits
-his confrontation with her is one of the moments his fragile mental state resembles true madness
+his behavior towards her is so intense
+his denial of love so bitter
+he is putting on a show to throw her off his trail
-this pretense of madness gives Hamlet the liberty to say, think and do what he like without any social inhibitions
-by time the play-within-a-play comes, Hamlet is more in control of himself
-he manipulates Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and speaks with Horatio
-he has the opportunity to trap Claudius into a sign of guilt which brings out again the theme of pretense and reality through the use of theatrical drama
-Hamlet’s make believe madness with Ophelia reveals his true feelings so too does the acting of the players show the true guilt of Claudius
-Hamlet and Claudius each devise a trap with which to catch the enemy’s secret
+Claudius spies on Hamlet to discover the true nature of his madness
+Hamlet attempts to “catch the conscience of the king” in the theater
-“To be or not to be” soliloquy furthers the theme of suicide
-Hamlet explores the problem of suicide again
-he considers suicide as an option available to all people, and concludes that all people would take it rather than suffer the “slings and arrows” of life, but they are afraid of what would happen to them in the afterlife
-this is an important soliloquy because it reveals Hamlet’s mind
+he is desperate to hang onto something in this crisis
+he is betrayed by religion and haunted by the supernatural
+he tries to formulate questions logically and examine them
philosophically
-the logical possibility of suicide is wreaked by the superstitious fear of the unknown
-religion cannot offer Hamlet stability—philosophy cannot explain the whole of existence and cannot help him overcome his fear
-there is a shift between light and dark
-Hamlet says that he is too much in the light – perhaps meaning he is receiving too much attention from Claudius or he is the rightful heir to the throne
-Claudius rules over a dark Denmark- he also says during the play “Give me some light” – Denmark has become darker and bleaker throughout the play and it will continue to get worse
-after the play, Hamlet believes the words of the ghost—based on Claudius’s reactions


ACT III scenes iii and iv

-the limitations of theological law prevent Hamlet from taking action
-he is psychologically ready to kill Claudius, but Hamlet does not kill him
- killing Claudius while he is praying would surely send him to heaven and
prevent him from going to hell where Claudius sent Hamlet’s father
-Hamlet has not committed suicide because of his fear of religious punishment in the afterlife
-these theological rules would seem haphazard…but we have the presence of the hell-tormented ghost to prove their validity
-in the presence of the ghost, the rules of theology become legitimate based on the theme of retribution and justice
-Hamlet must kill Claudius to punish him for his father’s death, he cannot kill himself for fear of similar punishment
-Claudius hurt Hamlet’s father on the natural and supernatural levels, Hamlet must not only murder Claudius but he must send him to hell
achieving revenge for eternity
-Hamlet’s confrontation with his mother—explores the moral problem of Gertrude
-Hamlet sums up Gertrude’s crimes and shows her the way to salvation (which she will refuse to take)
-Hamlet’s pretense of madness verges on the real thing
-his family relationship is revealed to be terribly damaged and probably irreparable
-the ghost appears before Hamlet and his mother (their family is reunited)
-Gertrude is unable to see her dead husband and thinks Hamlet is mad for speaking to him.
-the final scene where Polonius is killed is surrealistic in nature
-after the murder, both Hamlet and Gertrude ignore the body on the floor and continue their dialogue
-Hamlet speaks “daggers” to his mother—he avoids physical harm but play mind games and accuses her of murder
-Gertrude may have believed Hamlet had the ghost not appeared that can only be seen by Hamlet
-this contrasts the first act where everyone can see the ghost
-is Hamlet hallucinating?


ACT IV scene i, ii, iii, iv

-Hamlet killing Polonius in the previous section is morally disturbing
-Hamlet loses his idealized version of being human after he kills Polonius
-His inactive nature, which prevents him from killing Claudius, disappears here in favor of a violent, rash murderous explosion of activity
-Hamlet thinks Claudius is behind the curtain and lashes out
-Hamlet’s moral superiority to Claudius is not thrown into question—he has done to Polonius just as Claudius did to King Hamlet, the difference—Hamlet's murder of Polonius was not premeditated
-Polonius was dishonestly spying on Hamlet at the moment he was killed
-Laertes and Ophelia have lost as father, just as Hamlet did
-the flowers that Ophelia gives to Laertes, Claudius and Gertrude are a symbolic gesture of her lost sanity
-Ophelia is led to eventual suicide in light of the fact that she has lost both her lover and her father
-Hamlet is in a frantic, unstable frame of mind—he taunts Claudius, openly showing his hostility—he makes light of Polonius’s murder by playing word-games about it—he pretends to be thrilled to be sailing to England
-Hamlet is prepared for what is to come on his journey to England
-he suspects his old friends’ of treachery, but he may not fully realize the extent that Claudius will go to get rid of him
-Claudius asks the English to execute Hamlet which shows how afraid he is of him
-Hamlet is a danger to Claudius and Claudius wants him dead
-Hamlet’s meeting with the Norwegian captain reminds us of Fortinbras’s presence in the play and shows Hamlet the action that he lacks
-he is awestruck by the willingness of Fortinbras to devote the his energy, his army and hundreds of lives to reclaim a worthless piece of land in Poland


ACT IV scenes v, vi, vii

-important theme in Hamlet is the connection between the health of a state and the moral legitimacy of its ruler
-Claudius is rotten and therefore Denmark is rotten
-things are dark—Hamlet is gone; Polonius is dead and has been buried in secret; Ophelia is raving mad; the common people are disturbed by the events
-Laertes return to Denmark is accompanied by a miniature rebellion
-he is the wronged son operating on open fury
-Laertes has all the moral legitimacy that Claudius lacks and Hamlet has forfeited
-there is a powerful contrast between Hamlet and Laertes each of whom has a dead father to avenge
-Hamlet is reflective and has difficulty in acting, Laertes is active and has no need for thought; he only has a consuming desire to avenge Polonius
-Claudius asks Laertes how far he would go to avenge his father…he answers that he would slit Hamlet’s throat in a church
-scheming Claudius encounters Laertes at approximately the same moment he learns that Hamlet has survived and returned to Denmark
-he will convince Laertes to follow his plan which will get rid of Hamlet—the idea of a duel to use Laertes rage to get rid of Hamlet and help Claudius
-Ophelia’s tragic death occurs at the worst moment for Claudius
-image of Ophelia drowning amid her garlands of flowers is one of the most enduring images of the play
-Ophelia is associated with the flower image from the beginning of the play
-the fragile beauty of the flower resembles Ophelia’s fragile beauty and also her doomed innocence


ACT V scenes i and ii

-the gravediggers represent a humorous type commonly found in Shakespeare’s plays—the cleaver commoner who gets the better of his social superior through wit
-this type of clown appeals to the “groundlings” those who could not afford seats and stood on the ground at the Globe theater
-the gravediggers use jests and jibes which are made in the cemetery about the dead
-their conversation about Ophelia questions whether it is morally acceptable to bury a possible suicide victim
-this is a darkly comic interpretation of suicide
-this indicates the collapse of every lasting value in the play
-Hamlet confronts death in discovery Yorick’s skull, which he holds in his hand—and enduring image of the play
-the skull is material and not a ghost, and it reveals the true person
-he explodes in grief when he sees the funeral procession of Ophelia and his assault on Laertes offers a hint of what his true feelings for Ophelia have been
-there is a strong foreshadowing during the burial of Ophelia when Laertes leaps into the grave and Hamlet follows—both will die
-we can identify with Hamlet’s pain and his self-conflict
-in the final scene, the violence, long delayed, comes with speed
-characters drop one after another—poisoned, stabbed and in the case of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, executed
-Hamlet’s death is neither heroic nor shameful
-he achieves his vengeance; he watches his own mother die
-Fortinbras enters, clearly representing a strong-willed, capable leader
-Fortinbras treats Hamlet as a hero in the end
-Hamlet has all the criteria for a tragic hero; killed by circumstances rather than any direct fault of his own