Hamlet

Hamlet by The Bard/Shakespeare/TheGodofLit. I’m not even going to give info about Le Bard himself ‘cause if you don’t have a gasp of what the man does and his style, you just shouldn’t be in AP lit.

The play starts on a dark night where an apparition appears. It’s the third time that it’s appeared and the two guards who have spotted before bring Horatio, in hopes that it will talk to him. It doesn’t and disappears as the cock crows. Cut to Hamlet, Claudius, Gertrude and the royal court. Hamlet is mourning the recent death of his father and the more recent marriage of his mother to his father. There, Horatio, Hamlet’s friend, tells him that he’s seen his father’s ghost and Hamlet resolves to speak to it. He visits the spot where the ghost has been seen at night and it does appear, bidding him to come and speak. Horatio is against it but Hamlet goes anyways. Alone, the ghost affirms that it is the ghost of Hamlet the king and tells his son that it was Claudius that poisoned him. Hamlet promises revenge and the ghost disappears.

Meanwhile, Hamlet’s girlfriend, Ophelia talks to her brother, Laertes about Hamlet and he warns her not to have sex with him. Laertes leaves and Polonius, their father, finds out about Ophelia and Hamlet. He tells her to avoid him and she obeys. However, it’s news that Hamlet has gone mad and Polonius concludes that it must be because of his love for Ophelia. Claudius and Polonius spies on a conversation between Ophelia and Hamlet but he denies having any feelings for her while spewing out double meanings.

After, Hamlet meets a group of traveling actors and asks them to preform a specific scene that parallels the death of his father by Claudius. He plans for it to be preformed infront of the new King and if he reacts to the scene then he will know that Claudius is guilty. Indeed he is and when the moment arrives, Claudius gets out of the room. Hamlet finds him praying and decides that killing him now will send him to heaven and he deserves worse so he spares Claudius. Claudius is suspicious and decides to send Hamlet to England to die.

Hamlet confronts his mother about her recent marriage and convinces her not to go into bed with Claudius anymore, she agrees. He ends up killing Polonius who was spying on them thinking it was Claudius and plays hide and go seek with the man’s body. This gives Claudius more reason to send him to England immediately and he does so, with a letter telling England to kill Hamlet.  

After her father’s death, Ophelia goes crazy and starts singing songs of losing her v-card without the promise of marriage and gives flowers to everyone. Afterwards, she “accidentally” suicides. Laertes, returns home from France and finds out the death of sister and father and Claudius convinces him that it was all Hamlet’s fault. Hamlet, no doubt, has not been killed and actually survived because of pirates. He returns home just in time to Ophelia’s funeral and is overwhelmed with grief. Claudius convinces Laertes to have a duel with Hamlet, which they do. Hamlet is aware of the plan but goes anyways, where he is wounded by Laertes’ poisoned sword, Laertes is wounded by his sword by Hamlet, Gertrude drinks Hamlet’s cup which was poisoned by Claudius and Hamlet kills Claudius before dying. (That sounds like a really wicked love triangle).

His body is carried off for like a soldier by Fortinbras, the prince of Norway.

Characters

Hamlet- The flip floppy prince of Denmark, he loves and hates Denmark and has trouble actually identifying himself and who he really is. It also seems as if he’s on a philosophical/spiritual quest as well.

Claudius- The current king, uncle of Hamlet and murdered Hamlet’s father. He’s smart and cunning, a master manipulator of people. He’s very convincing and thinks only of himself at the end of the day.

Ophelia- Hamlet’s girlfriend gone crazy because her daddy died and her boyfriend pretty much disowned her and called her a prostitute.

Laertes- Ophelia’s brother, when he’s clear headed, he hands out good advice but with the death of his father and daughter, was manipulated by Claudius. He seems like the only genuinely decent character caught in the crossfire of the royal court.

Gertrude- Mother and queen, she can either be interpreted as a misguided mother or a very messed up person.

Horatio- Hamlet’s lover, I mean, best friend. The only person that doesn’t die in the bloodbath, he is the first to see the ghost and advises Hamlet and acts as his confidant. Interestingly, I think he’s also the only person from Wittenburg.

Narrative Voice

Has no point of view but there’s obviously a suspenseful, sometimes ominous, sometimes contemplative tone to the story through Shakespeare’s use of dialogue and the stage directions.

Symbols

Yorisk’s Skull: A symbol of death, the literal, decaying death that prompts Hamlet to make a decision on what to do with Claudius.

Ophelia’s Flowers: Each flower she hands out is meant for the emotions she wishes to convey

Quotes

“Frailty thy name is woman!”

Besides Hamlet’s misogyny, this quote also shows his ignorance towards the world and how misguided he is. This also explains why his only two relationships with woman fails as he does not believe in women at all and thinks that should go to nunneries.

“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”

This foreshadows just about everything that will happen in the book. But that’s not the reason why I picked it, other than it being short and easy to remember and use, theres an astounding level of parallelism at work here. Because, if Demark = King, then obviously, this is saying that the King has done something wrong. Also, Denmark = royal court, then the point of the play is to get rid of the rotten part, the royalties, which does happen in the last scene. Finally, Denmark = King = Hamlet, then it’s alluding to Hamlet’s internal crisis.

Theme

Hamlet is a play written by Willy Shakespeare, questions the reasons and cause for death, particularly murder, evaluating the capacity and certainty of a person’s identity and soul.

I try not to call Hamlet a Christ figure, because, honestly, I think we can be more specific than just that. I think Hamlet is the literal personification of our conscious (most of the time) he spends much of the novel going back and forth, asking himself “To be or not to be?” and this quote applies on multiple levels, to be a murderer, a son, a prince/king or a person and he struggles through this question. He also struggles with death, possibly because of his uncertainty towards himself, as York’s skull has proved.