Hamlet Summary and Analysis-Jan 21

Summary and Analysis of Hamlet

Author

Hamlet was written by William Shakespeare, the most highly regarded English playwright in history. Little is known about Shakespeare's life. He is the author of 38 plays and dozens of sonnets, including notable plays such as Henry VIII, Julius Caesar, and Romeo and Juliet. It is unknown exactly when Hamlet was written; most estimates are around 1600.

Setting

The play takes place in the castle Elsinore in Denmark. The time period is unspecified, and could be Shakespeare's time period or several centuries earlier. The castle Elsinore is the home of the King of Denmark and his court; deceit and corruption are commonplace within Elsinore. 

Summary

The play begins with the changing of night guard at Elsinore. Bernardo takes over the guard from Francisco. He is accompanied by Marcellus and Horatio, Hamlet's trusted advisor. The guards discuss with Horatio a ghost that they have seen previous nights. Horatio doubts them, but then the ghost appears, but will not speak with them. They decide to bring the news to Hamlet. Horatio explains the background story about the death of Old Hamlet and the challenge from Fortinbras of Norway. The ghost appears once more, but again will not speak with them. 

The next scene takes place inside the castle. The king and queen and their courtiers are present. The son of Polonius, Laertes, requests the king to return to school in France and the king agrees. Then Hamlet is introduced, and the king and queen beg him to stay in Elsinore instead of going back to school. They also encourage him to get over his father's death. Hamlet agrees to stay. Horatio and Marcellus then take Hamlet aside and recount to him the events of the night before, requesting that he keep guard with them that night.

The next scene takes place between Polonius, Laertes, and Ophelia. Polonius gives Laertes advice about what to do while away in France. Laertes gives advice to Ophelia about how to deal with Hamlet, who is supposedly in love with her.

The fourth scene takes place on the guard platform at night. The ghost appears again and beckons Hamlet to follow it. Hamlet's companions try to hold him back, but he throws them off and exits with the ghost.

The ghost speaks to Hamlet, telling him that he is the ghost of Hamlet's father, Old Hamlet. The ghost tells Hamlet that his father was murdered by his uncle Claudius in the orchard, and demands that Hamlet make his revenge. Hamlet swears to avenge the deed, and makes his companions swear to secrecy, saying he will pretend to be mad in the coming days.

The second act begins with Polonius and Reynaldo. Polonius instructs Reynaldo to go to Laertes in France, but to inquire into his business there before meeting him. Reynaldo agrees and departs. Then Ophelia enters, saying Hamlet entered her chamber and seemed mad. 

Polonius goes to the king and queen, reporting Hamlet's actions, and saying that Hamlet's madness must be caused by his love for Ophelia. The king and queen recruit Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Hamlet's old friends, to spy on him and discover the cause of his madness. Both Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and Polonius speak with Hamlet, but he reveals nothing to them, only mocking them, although they do not realize it. Then the players enter and Hamlet exchanges lines with them, reciting excerpts from famous Greek and Roman works. Hamlet ends the scene with his longest soliloquy, in which he contemplates life and death, and decides to put on a play mirroring the events of his father's death to check the king's guilt from his reaction to it. 

Then Rosencrantz and Guildenstern report to the king and queen and discuss Hamlet's condition. Polonius suggests letting him talk to Ophelia while they watch from behind a screen, and they hide as Hamlet and Ophelia enter. Hamlet suspects they are being watched and betrays nothing, communicating his confused feelings to Ophelia with the double meaning of the phrase "get thee to a nunnery." The king recognizes Hamlet still possesses some reason despite his strange actions. 

The characters then all meet for the play. Hamlet speaks with Ophelia at the start, giving mixed messages. The actors perform the play, and the king jumps up, revealing to Hamlet that he is guilty of the crime. Hamlet leaves, his suspicions confirmed. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern enter, and Hamlet berates them for betraying him. Polonius enters and tells Hamlet to meet with the queen. 

Hamlet observes the king confessing his crimes while at prayer, but decides not to murder him there.

Hamlet then goes to his mother's room and antagonizes her for marrying Claudius after his father's death. He discovers Polonius spying on them and kills him, thinking him to be the king. Hamlet insists to his mother that he is not mad, despite the ghost reappearing, seen only to him. He exits, dragging Polonius's body. 

Act four begins with the king and queen discussing grave matters of Hamlet's madness and Polonius's death. The king instructs Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to recover the body from Hamlet, but they fail. Hamlet enters and tells the king where the b.ody is. The king decides to send Hamlet to England in punishment of the crime, sending letters in secret instructing that he be killed there. Hamlet departs, seeing an army from Norway on the plain, Supposedly marching through to Poland. 

Back in Elsinore, Horatio goes to the queen saying Ophelia has gone mad after he father's death. Ophelia sings in her madness, but communicates certain things about her love to Hamlet. Laertes has returned from France and blames the king for his father's death but the king calms him and turns the blame on Hamlet. In the meantime, Horatio receives a letter from Hamlet saying he is returning from England after being captured by pirates. The king and Laertes make a plan to kill Hamlet in a duel and with poison. 

Hamlet and Horatio go to a graveyard and speak with the gravedigger. They are interrupted by Ophelia's funeral, and Hamlet and Laertes both jump into Ophelia's grave and begin fighting. Hamlet confesses his love for her. 

Back in the castle, Hamlet and Horatio speak, and Osric brings word of a challenge from Horatio. Hamlet accepts, and goes to the duel. He and Laertes begin, and Hamlet begins the fight well, winning the first two exchanges. The king offers him wine that he has poisoned as a reward, part of he and Laertes' plan. The queen takes the cup and drinks and falls to the ground. Hamlet and Laertes begin fighting again, and exchange weapons, giving Hamlet the rapier Laertes had poisoned, also part of the plan. Both are wounded, and Laertes confesses his treachery, saying they will both die and the king is to blame. Hamlet kills the king. About to die, he imparts his final wishes to Horatio, just as Fortinbras storms the castle. Fortinbras honors Hamlet's death.

Characters

Hamlet

The prince of Denmark, beloved by the people. He is 30 years old and highly intelligent but distressed by the death of his father. He is driven to the point of madness by his desire to avenge his father, and constantly debates if he should kill the king although he sees moral problems with it. He also contemplates suicide throughout the play. He spends much of the play philosophizing about life, death, and morality. Hamlet trusts no one except for Horatio, and constantly mocks other characters with his clever wit. Hamlet tends to use extended metaphors and figurative language when he speaks. 

Horatio

Hamlet's right hand man, trusted by everyone at Elsinore. Horatio is regarded as wise and scholarly; other character's heed his advice throughout the play. 

Claudius

The king of Denmark at the time of the play. The younger brother of Old Hamlet and uncle of young Hamlet. He is not well-loved by the people. He became king when he murdered Old Hamlet. Shortly after the murder he married Gertrude the queen, who may have been his main objective in the murder. Claudius is afraid throughout the play that his actions will be betrayed or that the people will turn against him. He acts cautiously though out the play, especially when dealing with Hamlet. He shows some regret for his actions in the scene when he is praying.

Gertrude

The queen of Denmark and the wife of Old Hamlet. Married Claudius shortly after her former husbands death. She is fond of her son Hamlet and of her new husband. Though she feels guilt about the dishonor that comes from marrying her dead husband's brother when Hamlet accuses her of it. 

Polonius

Advisor of king Claudius. Polonius is very crafty and works for his own political gain and to preserve his position in the court. He works against Hamlet throughout the play. He instructs his children bvery closely, teaching them to also work for political gain and betray nothing to other members of the court.

Laertes

Son of Polonius. Laertes claims to be enraged by his father's murder, but it is unclear whether he truly loved him or just wishes to defend his honor. Laertes often acts rashly and is manipulated by the king to help him against Hamlet. 

Ophelia

Daughter of Polonius, young and most likely innocent and unaware of the gravity of many of the events at Elsinore. She likely loves Hamlet, although her father and brother warn her against it. She hints that she may be pregnant. Her father's death drives her into madness, and to death, possibly suicide. 

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

Former friends of Hamlet recruited by the king to spy on him. They work mainly with the king and follow his orders blindly. 

Fortinbras

Son of the old king of Norway. Acts as a foil to Hamlet: he acts rashly and is quick to anger and seek revenge for his father- quite the opposite of Hamlet. He attacks Elsinore at the end of the play and demonstrates an honorable nature by his treatment of dead Hamlet.

Style

Shakespeare wrote the play in a masterful style that creates ambiguity. All the events in the play and the lines of characters can be interpreted in multiple ways. Hamlet's capture by pirates for example, creates perfect ambiguity of whether Hamlet outsmarted Rosencrantz and Guildenstern or whether he was truly captured by pirates. The reader cannot know for certain. Similarly in all the speeches, the abundance of lies at Elsinore make it unclear in almost every sentence whether the characters truly feel as they are saying or if they are plotting and lying for their own gain. Shakespeare ambiguous style leaves much up to the reader for interpretation.

Tone 

Shakespeare's tone throughout the play is difficult to identify. Shakespeare deliberately minimizes all stage directions and narration that would give clues about tone in the play. However, the foreboding  tone of the play is communicated through the actions and lines of the characters. Right from the start of the play, it is established through the appearance of the ghost that something in Denmark is amiss and hanging over the people at Elsinore. Throughout the play, dark events continue but the problem is not resolved, foreshadowing the ultimate tragedy that occurs at the conclusion. 

Point of View

Shakespeare's own point of view is impossible to identify through his writing. The absence of narration and stage direction and the ambiguity of the lines of characters make it impossible to decipher how Shakespeare meant the play to be interpreted. The power of the play is mainly the absence of a point of view, which leaves the questions posed by events unanswered.

Imagery

Throughout the play, the dark and foreboding tone is communicated with dark backgrounds and figurative language. In the opening scene and the scene in which the ghost speaks with Hamlet, the setting is given as a cold night. Most interpretations of the play that we watched communicated this cold night as windy, pitch black, and slightly haunting, creating an uninviting and sinister atmosphere. 

Throughout the play, characters also use imagery and figurative language in their speeches. One example of this is in Hamlet's speech to the queen describing his father's picture. He uses vivid imagery and allusions to mythology to communicate that his father was the image of perfection, describing his visage. 

Symbolism:

Emptiness

In almost all interpretations of the play, Elsinore is shown to be deserted in most scenes. This emptiness could reflect Hamlet's inner confusion and the separation he feels from the people around him. 

Yorick's Skull

The skull Hamlet finds in the graveyard represents his fear and wonder about death. The skull represents everything that he has philosophized about death throughout the play and what remains of someone's body  and soul after death.

Hamlet's clothing

No stage direction are given directing Hamlet's costume, but some directors chose to make Hamlet's dress mirror his inner emotions throughout the play. Dressing in dark colors or black has been used to symbolize Hamlet's depression.

Flowers:

Flowers symbolize innocence in the play, especially when relating to Ophelia, who is commonly associated with violets. She is frequently compared with a flower, and describes for herself what the different flowers symbolize during the flower scene.

Quotes

"Give thy thoughts no tongue, nor any unproportion'd thought his act"-Polonius. With this quote, Polonius unintentionally summarizes the state of Elsinore and Hamlet. Most of the character's in Elsinore lie and hide their true motives behind acts for the majority of the play; that is, they do not speak their true thoughts. Hamlet's predicament is that he heeds Polonius's advice too well, thinking too much before he acts.

"To be or not to be."-This quote from Hamlet's soliloquy summarizes his internal conflict throughout the play. He consistently wonder whether he should kill the king, kill himself, or do a number of other things. His indecision is the central internal conflict of the play.

Theme

One theme of Hamlet is the mystery of death.

Death and its impact on Hamlet's thought and actions are present throughout the play. From the beginning, Hamlet wonders about the death of his father when the ghost appears. He debates whether the ghost is from heaven or hell, raising question about the immortality of the soul and the purging of sin. Later Hamlet debates suicide, wondering whether what awaits him after death could be better or worse than what he experiences in his torment at Elsinore. Hamlet likewise debates his own ability to deal out death, especially to the king. He wonders if the punishment that awaits the king after death will avenge his crimes.

Open Prompt (Edited) from Oct 14

Prompt:

2004. Critic Roland Barthes has said, "Literature is the question minus the answer." Choose a novel, or play, and, considering Barthes' observation, write an essay in which you analyze a central question the work raises and the extent to which it offers answers. Explain how the author's treatment of this question affects your understanding of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

In the novel Animal Farm, George Orwell implicitly addresses the question of why communism fails as a system of government. The question is neither directly stated nor directly answered; instead, through obvious allegory and the fictional farm animal's society, Orwell shows the reader how communism fails. Throughout the novel, Orwell shows in his fictional society that communism fails because it manifests in corrupted form, because it provides only works temporarily, and because members of society are innately unequal, but he leaves his implicit question unanswered. 

       Orwell shows the reader the corruption of true communism through the animals' deviation from the vision of Old Major, who is representative of communism's founder Karl Marx in the novel. In the beginning, Old Major present his pure vision of a utopian society in which all are equal and share the work equally according to their ability. As the play progresses however, that utopia is corrupted as the pigs seize power. This change occurs gradually so that the animals are unaware of it. The reader, however, who can perceive events neutrally and whose memory is superior to that of the animals, sees the gradual progression that leaves the system in a totally different state than that in which it began. These changes are explicitly presented on the barn wall in the novel, where the commandments of the government system are written, which change many times throughout the novel. Each time they change, the animals still treat them as divine law. Orwell never explicitly states anything regarding deterioration of the utopian ideals, but the irreversible trend from good to bad to worse makes his message clear. He does not offer any solution to the problem, simply cutting off the novel at a low point, and leaving the reader to reflect on the problem and think about what a possible solution could be. 

        Orwell shows how short lived of a solution communism is by making the story form a complete circle, ending exactly as it started. In the beginning, the farmer oppresses the animals, and as the novel progresses, the pigs become more and more alike them until the two are indistinguishable to the other animals. Thus the problem was only solved for a short time, because of the nature of the animals themselves. Orwell presents implicit questions of why the animals do not recognize it, or what could be done to prevent the deterioration of the system, but again he gives no answer.

       The main question Orwell addresses with his allegorical society, is whether communism could ever achieve the utopia Old Major saw. He asks this by presenting and emphasizing the main problem with communism-that there will always be innate inequality among people and animals. Each time of farm animal in the novel represents a stereotypical person in society, and throughout the novel the differences between them destroy the system. The main example of this is the horse Boxer, who is loyal and selfless, giving far more to the system than he gets out of it. In the same way, other animals contribute more or less than their equal share of the work because of their personalities or because of the innate abilities of their species. The result is that the farm society is destroyed because some species like Boxer are worked to death, while other's contribute nothing. Orwell leaves the reader with the unanswered question of whether this could have been prevents to realize Old Major's dreams.

       Old the events and representations in Orwell's allegory serve to indirectly ask questions about the nature of communism. Instead of writing an essay giving specific details and professing possible solutions, Orwell presents his questions in an allegory, leaving the readers to make connection on their own. Essentially by leaving the questions implicit and unanswered, he escapes any possible criticism of his views. The obvious allegory paralleling events of the Russian Revolution establish the real and heavy undertone to the events of the farm, which seem rather absurd if taken at face value. With his fictional society, Orwell forced people to reconsider questions about the political movement which shaped the 20th century.

Response to Course Materials Jan 13

     After doing the close read of Hamlet and the annotations, I have decided that I actually enjoy the play very much. Most of the subtlety and meaning, I now realize, went right over my head the first time through. Going over some of the speeches again, especially some Hamlet's, revealed the thought that went into the writing. Some of Hamlet's word play and metaphors are unbelievable clever. The simplest example I can think of is the word play on "lying" in a grave in the first scene of act 5. All throughout the play, Hamlet practically never breaks character from speaking in elaborate riddles and metaphors that, when you think about them, actually have multiple levels of meaning to fit the situation.
     With regards to the movies we have watched in class, I found the second movie much enjoyable and in accordance with how I pictured the scenes. The scenery is much more elaborate, and the majority of the characters are cast much better. The first video also took many interpretive liberties, like playing up the relationships between Hamlet and Horatio and Hamlet and his mother. As I have said multiple times, there is really no evidence to make either of those more than wild speculation. And even so, the ambiguity of it is part of the genius and beauty of the play. By making that choice for the reader/watcher the director took away some of the deeper meaning of the play. The only thing I found strange about the second version of the play we watched was the time period. The actors and weaponry and buildings were in a style that suggested a time period much later than I had envisioned.