Hamlet Key Analysis

HAMLET

Act I(brief summary): For two nights, the Ghost of King Hamlet has haunted the soldiers guarding Elsinore castle. On the third night, Horatio joins the watch; when the Ghost appears, however, it does not speak. Horatio surmises that the spirit represents a bad omen of Denmark's future. The next day, Claudius addresses the assembled aristocrats at court; he thanks them for helping him to succeed to the throne of Denmark and for permitting his hasty marriage to Gertrude. The king then directs two ambassadors to travel to Norway and resolve the conflict with Fortinbras, who threatens Denmark with war. Claudius next turns his attention to Hamlet, whom he and Gertrude chide for expressing excessive melancholy over his father's death. Once alone, Hamlet describes the depth of his grief and his disgust at Gertrude's marriage to Claudius so soon after her husband's death. After the prince's speech, Horatio enters and tells him about the Ghost; Hamlet decides to stand watch with the guards that night. Elsewhere, Laertes, who has secured the king's permission to return to his studies in Paris, warns Ophelia to beware Hamlet's romantic advances. When Polonius enters, he gives Laertes some parting advice and upon learning of his daughter's budding relationship with Hamlet, forbids her to see him again. That night the Ghost appears to Hamlet, demanding revenge for his murder at the hands of Claudius. The prince promises to undertake the task, swearing that he will concentrate on nothing else until it is accomplished.

Act I Full Scene Summary

Scene i: The play opens in the dead of night on the walls of Elsinore Castle. Gloom, uncertainty and anxiety hang over the kingdom of Denmark, the first words spoken coming as the sentinel's challenge, "Who's there?" In short order we learn from the guard of the night watch that the long-time King of Denmark, "Old Hamlet" or "Ur-Hamlet," died mysteriously just two months earlier, that his brother, Claudius, has taken the throne, and that Claudius has married the dead king's wife, Queen Gertrude. The members of the watch, including Prince Hamlet's loyal friend Horatio, are further alarmed over the recent appearance of a ghost who resembles Hamlet's late father, and they plan to tell Hamlet about this disturbing apparition.

Scene ii: The play now shifts to the royal court of King Claudius and his new wife, Queen Gertrude, as we first see Hamlet's uncle dealing capably with affairs of state. In this, he is advised by his chief counselor, Polonius, and the King has a cordial exchange with his minister's son, Laertes. Hamlet, however, remains in the background, a surly figure muttering resentful asides. Claudius rejects Hamlet's request to return to college at Wittenberg, and urges him to cease his "unmanly" mourning for his father. When the royal entourage departs, Hamlet speaks a soliloquy about his resentments toward his stepfather, his mother, and their incestuous marriage. Horatio and his cohorts arrive and tell the prince about the ghost they have seen. Hamlet vows to observe it himself.

Scene iii: The scene is comprised of an exchange among Polonius, his son Laertes and his daughter, Ophelia. The young maiden Ophelia reveals to her father and brother that Prince Hamlet is "madly" in love with her. Both Polonius and Laertes strongly warn her about any romance with a prince of the realm, particularly one who seems to be mentally unbalanced.

Scenes iv-v: Back at the walls of the castle, the Ghost of Hamlet's father speaks to his son directly and urges him to follow him to a one-on-one encounter. Hamlet has misgivings, but he obeys and the ghost then confirms that he is, in fact, the dead King. He also discloses that he was the victim of a murder, that Claudius poured poison into his ear while he was asleep. The Ghost tells Hamlet that this heinous crime must be avenged and that it falls to his son to exact justice by killing Claudius. The Ghost also says that the Queen's fate must be left to heaven. The Ghost departs and the Hamlet swears Horatio and Marcellus (another member of the watch) to secrecy. He then reveals to them that he will pretend to be mad as a ruse to further his emerging plan of revenge.

Act II (brief summary): Though several weeks have passed since Hamlet's meeting with the Ghost, he cannot bring himself to act. He not only dislikes the bloody deed he must perform, but, in a deep depression, begins to suspect that the Ghost is an evil spirit trying to trick him. While the prince bides his time, he assumes an "antic disposition" and at one point frightens Ophelia with his madness. Because the girl has ended their relationship, Polonius concludes that Hamlet's insanity reflects love-sickness. He reports his observations to Claudius, and the two men plot a meeting between the prince and Ophelia to further determine the nature of Hamlet's madness. Meanwhile, Claudius enlists Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to discern the cause of the prince's insanity. A troupe of actors arrives at Elsinore after Hamlet's school friends, and the prince resolves to have them perform before Claudius that evening a re-enactment of King Hamlet's murder. Hamlet concludes that any demonstration of guilt by his uncle during the performance will confirm the Ghost's story and justify his revenge.

Act II Full Scene Summary

Scene i: Polonius sends a servant to spy on Laertes who has returned to Paris to continue his studies. Ophelia enters and tells her father that Hamlet is acting in an insane way. Polonius says that he will tell King Claudius about his stepson's lunacy.

Scene ii: In the royal court the King and Queen welcome two of Hamlet's college friends---Rosencrantz and Guildenstern---and Claudius asks that they keep an eye on the melancholy Prince. Polonius enters with the report about Hamlet's madness from Ophelia, and suggests that he arrange for the King to eavesdrop on a conversation between his daughter and the Prince. Polonius encounters Hamlet, and the Prince acts in a seemingly "mad" way, although the aged counselor suspects that there may be a "method" (ulterior purpose) behind Hamlet's insanity. A troupe of actors arrive at Elsinore, and Hamlet arranges for them to perform a modified version of a play titled "The Murder of Gonzago." His intention is to watch Claudius during the performance for telltale signs of guilt.

Act III(brief summary): The next day Polonius and Claudius eavesdrop on Hamlet and Ophelia as the prince abuses the girl with violent denunciations of women and marriage. After Hamlet storms away, Polonius recommends that they attempt a similar interview between Hamlet and Gertrude; Claudius agrees, but concerned with the prince's increasingly dangerous behaviour, decides to send him to England. Later, the players follow Hamlet's instructions and re-enact Claudius's crime before the royal court. After witnessing the performance, the king flees the hall in a state of distress. Alone in his chambers, Claudius tries to pray. Hamlet discovers his uncle knelt in prayer and, though the moment is ideal, restrains himself from taking revenge, reasoning that if the king is killed in an act of repentance his soul will immediately go to heaven. Instead, the prince proceeds to Gertrude's chamber, where he denounces her so violently that Polonius—who is concealed behind a curtain—becomes alarmed and cries for help. In a rage, Hamlet thrusts his sword through the curtain and fatally stabs the counselor. The prince resumes berating his mother until the Ghost reappears to remind him of his mission; Hamlet implores her to repent of her sins before leaving with Polonius's body.

Act III Full Scene Summary

Scene i: Polonius and Claudius carry out their plan to watch Hamlet while he speaks with Ophelia. Hamlet enters and issues a wild diatribe against women, insulting and rejecting Ophelia and thereby showing his madness. Claudius tells Polonius that he has decided to send Hamlet on a mission to England in the company of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Scene ii: With lines added to their script by Hamlet, the actors, including a Player King and a Player Queen, perform a silent introduction to a play-within-a-play with a plot that closely resembles Claudius's murder of Hamlet's father. As Hamlet expects, Claudius is visibly distressed by the guilt that this dumb-show evokes. Hamlet is then summoned to a talk with his mother. Before going to see Gertrude, Hamlet expresses great anger toward her but he recalls his ghost father's words to leave her punishment to heaven.

Scene iii: Polonius informs the King that Hamlet is about to speak with his mother, and that he plans to eavesdrop on their talk. Alone on stage, Claudius reveals profound guilt about his crime, and says that it so evil a deed that he is unable to seek God's forgiveness for it. The King nevertheless falls to his knees in prayer. Hamlet sees the King in this vulnerable posture and considers killing him. But he exercises restraint instead, justifying the delay through the thought that killing Claudius while at prayer might yield the villain-king's salvation. He decides that he will wait until Claudius is provoked into anger before slaying him.

Scene iv: In Queen Gertrude's chambers, Polonius hides behind a curtain to secretly witness her interaction with the Prince. Hamlet appears, and his irate demeanor causes the Queen to become frightened and to call out for help. Polonius also cries out for help, and Hamlet then stabs him behind the curtain, mistaking the counselor for King Claudius. Hamlet expresses only modest regret for this mistake. He immediately proceeds to condemn his mother, comparing the virtues of her first husband to the vices of Claudius. The Ghost re-appears to Hamlet (although not to Gertrude), and reminds his son of the vow to treat Gertrude with pity. Hamlet urges his mother to confess her part in Old Hamlet's death and leaves carrying the body of Polonius with him.

Act IV(brief summary): After Hamlet leaves his mother, Gertrude informs Claudius that the prince has killed Polonius. Following a face-to-face encounter, the king orders Hamlet to leave immediately for England and gives Rosencrantz and Guildenstern a sealed letter authorizing the prince's execution. As he prepares to board ship, Hamlet observes Fortinbras's army encamped nearby. In a long soliloquy he compares his own dilemma to the impending slaughter that Fortinbras's forces will surely face over a worthless plot of land. He ultimately resolves that from now on he will show no mercy in his quest for revenge. Meanwhile, Laertes returns from France, furiously demanding an explanation for his father's murder. The youth's grief and anger mounts when he discovers that Ophelia has gone insane. While Claudius attempts to placate the incensed youth, sailors arrive at Elsinore bearing letters from Hamlet. Horatio receives the first note, which describes how the prince was taken prisoner by pirates who attacked his ship on the high seas and thereafter returned him to Denmark. Hamlet's note to Claudius announces his imminent return to Elsinore, prompting the king and Laertes to devise a plot to murder him during a fencing match in which Laertes will fight with a poison-tipped foil. Gertrude then enters in a distraught state and informs the two men that Ophelia has drowned.

Act IV Full Scene Summary

Scenes i-ii: Gertrude tells Claudius about the death of Polonius, and the King directs Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to recover the counselor's corpse. The two students confront Hamlet, who mocks them, refuses to tell them where the body is hidden, but then agrees to see the King.

Scene iii: At court, Claudius tells his noblemen that Hamlet has become a threat to the kingdom, yet he fears to act directly against him because of the Prince's popularity. Instead, Claudius tells his liegemen that he will exile Hamlet to England. Now in custody, Hamlet is informed of his "mission" to England. When all save Claudius have left the stage, Claudius confides that he is sending sealed letters to the King of England, asking that monarch to kill Hamlet.

Scenes iv: On a field in Denmark, Hamlet and his friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, come across a captain from an army led by the Norwegian prince Fortinbras. They learn that this armed force is on its way to war with Poland over a small plot of land. Hamlet derides himself for being unable to kill Claudius while the men of Fortinbras's army die for a far less justifiable cause.

Scene v: Gertrude is informed that Ophelia has gone insane. Ophelia enters and her behaviour attests to this news, as she sings a morbid, distracted song about a dead lover. A messenger arrives and tells the King and Queen that Laertes, angered at news of his father's death, has returned from France and is now at the castle gates with a large army, demanding an explanation of Polonius's death. Claudius enlists the irate Laertes in a plot to kill Hamlet.

Scene vi-vii: Horatio receives a letter from Hamlet which tells of the Prince's being captured by pirates who have agreed to release him while Rosencrantz and Guildenstern continue on to England. Claudius and Laertes conspire to kill Hamlet during a "sporting" duel using a sharpened and poisoned fencing sword. The King puts forth a back-up plan to offer Hamlet a poisoned glass of wine during this context. Word comes that the troubled Ophelia has committed suicide.

Act V(brief summary): Hamlet and Horatio meet in a graveyard near Elsinore where the prince and a gravedigger have a candid discussion about corpses. As Ophelia's funeral procession approaches, the two men conceal themselves to watch the ceremony. When Hamlet realizes that the funeral is Ophelia's, he reveals himself and protests that his love for the girl was greater than Laertes's, whereupon the two men scuffle over the grave. Later, Hamlet tells Horatio about Claudius's plot to have him killed in England and about switching the king's letter with one ordering the execution of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern instead. When a courtier enters with Laertes's invitation to a fencing match, Horatio warns Hamlet of a trap. The prince accepts the challenge, however, maintaining that he must yield his fate to divine will. During the match, Claudius drops a poisoned pearl in a cup of wine intended for the prince. When Hamlet refuses the proffered drink, Gertrude unwittingly drinks it herself. As they continue the match, Laertes cuts the prince with his tainted sword; Hamlet furiously retaliates, the two switch foils, and the prince in turn wounds Laertes with the poisoned weapon. When Gertrude collapses, Laertes realizes Claudius's treachery; he begs Hamlet's forgiveness and blames the king before he dies. Hamlet attacks Claudius, stabbing him first with his sword and then forcing him to drink from the venomous cup before he, too, succumbs to the effects of the poison. Distressed at the sight of his dying friend, Horatio tries to drink some tainted wine, but Hamlet prevents him, telling him that he must explain to the world how such a catastrophe happened. The prince then names Fortinbras king of Denmark. After Hamlet dies, the prince of Norway enters, having victoriously returned from the war with Poland, and orders some of his soldiers to bury Hamlet with full military honours.

Act V Full Scene Summary

Scene i: The action takes place in a graveyard as preparations are made to give Ophelia a Christian burial even though she has committed the sin of suicide. Hamlet meditates upon the subject of human mortality, some of his thoughts coming as he holds the skull of the dead court jester, Yorick, in his hand. Laertes and a funeral procession arrive with Ophelia's corpse. Hamlet and Laertes grapple with each other, literally falling into the grave.

Scene ii: In the play's concluding scene, Hamlet tells Horatio that he has altered the King's sealed document so that it asks for the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Through the foppish character Osric, Hamlet is challenged to a duel with Laertes. Hamlet suspects foul play, but expresses his resolve to take part in the contest even if it means his own death. In a rapid series of events, Hamlet is mortally wounded, as is Laertes, Gertrude drinks from the poisoned cup, and a dying Hamlet first wounds Claudius and then forces him to drink from the same lethal cup. Hamlet and Laertes forgive each other, and Hamlet then names Fortinbras as his successor to the throne after dissuading Horatio from joining him in death. Fortinbras arrives and orders a hero's funeral for Hamlet.
PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS!
Barnardo and Marcellus: Two guards at Elsinore. They witness the Ghost of King Hamlet and report the event to Horatio, who joins them on the night watch during the spirit's third visit.

Horatio: Hamlet's friend. He informs the prince of the Ghost's appearance during the night watch. As Hamlet plots to avenge his father's murder, Horatio becomes the Dane's sole confidant.

Ghost: King Hamlet's spirit. He instructs his son to avenge his murder and rid Denmark of his killer, Claudius.

Claudius: Hamlet's uncle. After he succeeds in murdering his brother without raising suspicions, Claudius replaces King Hamlet as ruler of Denmark and marries the widowed queen, Gertrude. When Claudius realizes that Hamlet has discovered the murder, he plots to kill the prince.

Laertes: Polonius's son and a student. He wrathfully returns from his studies in Paris after Hamlet kills his father. Claudius persuades him to take part in a plot in which he will fatally poison the prince during a fencing match.

Polonius: Claudius's chief counselor and Laertes and Ophelia's father. He is accidentally killed by Hamlet while he eavesdrops behind a curtain in Gertrude's chamber.

Hamlet - Prince of Denmark: He is King Hamlet's son and Claudius's nephew. Through his meeting with the Ghost, Hamlet learns of his father's murder and Claudius's villainy, which he vows to avenge. He is mortally wounded during the fencing match, but not before he kills Laertes with the poison sword and Claudius with both the sword and the chalice of tainted wine.

The character of Hamlet dominates Shakespeare's tragedy of the same name, yet Hamlet at the start of the play is not a commanding figure. Indeed, when we first see the Prince, his posture is defensive, Hamlet taking a passive, if resentful, stance toward the events that have befallen him. Slow to the conviction that the ghost is his dead father and that Claudius is guilty of regicide, Hamlet does not go straight to the task at hand. Hamlet's delay or procrastination is something about which critics have wondered and that the character himself agonizes, his self-reproach reaching an apex in Act IV, scene iv. which concludes with the words "O, from this time forth, My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!" (lines 65-66).

Gertrude: Queen of Denmark. King Hamlet's widow and Hamlet's mother who marries Claudius two months after her husband's death. She dies during the fencing match when she mistakenly drinks from the poisoned chalice intended for Hamlet.

Ophelia: Polonius's daughter. She obeys her father's instructions and ends her relationship with Hamlet. After Hamlet kills Polonius, Ophelia goes insane and eventually drowns in a stream.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: Two of Hamlet's school friends. They are enlisted by Claudius and Gertrude to discover the source of the prince's madness. They attempt to escort the prince to England where he is to be executed, but he turns the tables on them and escapes.

Fortinbras: Prince of Norway. His father was killed by King Hamlet in combat years before and he demands certain territories as recompense. When Claudius achieves a diplomatic resolution to the issue, Fortinbras leads the army he initially directed at Denmark to war in Poland. At the end of the play, Hamlet names Fortinbras king of Denmark.

The Gravediggers: Two clowns (country peasants) who dig Ophelia's grave. One of these workers engages Hamlet in a conversation about corpses.

Hamlet is without question the most famous play in the English language. Probably written in 1601 or 1602, the tragedy is a milestone in Shakespeare's dramatic development; the playwright achieved artistic maturity in this work through his brilliant depiction of the hero's struggle with two opposing forces: moral integrity and the need to avenge his father's murder.

In the words of Ernest Johnson, "the dilemma of Hamlet the Prince and Man" is "to disentangle himself from the temptation to wreak justice for the wrong reasons and in evil passion, and to do what he must do at last for the pure sake of justice. . . . From that dilemma of wrong feelings and right actions he ultimately emerges, solving the problem by attaining a proper state of mind." Hamlet endures as the object of universal identification because his central moral dilemma transcends the Elizabethan period, making him a man for all ages. In his difficult struggle to somehow act within a corrupt world and yet maintain his moral integrity, Hamlet ultimately reflects the fate of all human beings.

The most fundamental issue in Hamlet, one which opens the door to countless readings of the play, can be stated in one simple question: Why does Hamlet delay taking revenge on Claudius? While critics offer various answers to this question, their theories generally differ in two distinct ways: one group focuses on the inner workings of Hamlet's mind as the primary cause of his procrastination; the other stresses the external obstacles that prohibit the prince from carrying out his task. Critics who find the cause of Hamlet's delay in his internal meditations typically view the prince as a man of great moral integrity who is forced to commit an act that goes against his deepest principles.

Hamlet is often called an "Elizabethan revenge play", the theme of revenge against an evil usurper driving the plot forward as in earlier stage works by Shakespeare's contemporaries, Kyd and Marlowe, as well as by the French writer Belleforest (Histoires Tragiques, 1576). As in those works, a hero plays minister and scourge in avenging a moral injustice, an affront to both man and God. In this case, regicide (killing a king) is a particularly monstrous crime, and there is no doubt as to whose side our sympathies are disposed.