Summary: Act I, scene 1

Sentinels Barnardo and Francisco stand the night watch at Denmark's Elsinore castle. Francisco is about
to go off duty when Marcellus, another sentinel, appears with Horatio, a friend of young Prince Hamlet.
As soon as Francisco leaves, Marcellus and Barnardo eagerly discuss two appearances of a ghost
during their watch. The spirit resembles the late King Hamlet, Prince Hamlet's father. Horatio is
unconvinced.

As they attempt to convince him that the apparition is more than their imaginations, the ghost appears to
the three of them. At the others' urging, Horatio begs the ghost to speak, but it refuses and slips away.
Horatio is terrified and suggests that the ghost's presence signifies something terrible for Denmark.

Noting that the ghost is wearing the very armor he had on when he fought old Fortinbras of Norway,
Horatio recounts the story of King Hamlet, who was drawn into battle with Fortinbras over a small piece
of land. Fortinbras is killed in the battle, and, as victor, King Hamlet wins back the land—land that
Fortinbras's son, also named Fortinbras, now seeks to reclaim.

As Horatio's story concludes, the ghost appears again and seems about to speak. Suddenly, however,
the rooster crows with the rising sun and the ghost slips away. Horatio suggests they inform Hamlet of
what they've seen.
Summary: Act I, scene 2

Claudius holds court at Elsinore and thanks everyone for their support through the kingdom's recent
events: the death and funeral of his brother, King Hamlet, and Claudius's subsequent marriage
to Gertrude. Claudius then turns to the matter of young Fortinbras of Norway, giving everyone the latest
information on the warlike young man's actions.

Claudius speculates that Fortinbras thinks Denmark may be in chaos and that this environment may offer
him an advantage. Claudius relates that he has written to Fortinbras's uncle, the present king of Norway
who is gravely ill. The letter informs the older man of his nephew's actions.

Claudius then turns his attention to Laertes, son of the counselor Polonius. With a show of fatherly
affection for Laertes, Claudius presses to know what he has to ask. Laertes, having come from France
for Claudius's coronation, now asks permission to return to France. Ascertaining that Laertes has his
father's blessing to depart, Claudius agrees that Laertes may go.

Claudius and Gertrude then chide Hamlet about his continued mourning for his father. Claudius tells
Hamlet that while it is commendable to honor one's father, to so prolong a display shows a weakness of
character. He then invites Hamlet to look upon him as a father and wishes Hamlet to reconsider going
back to school in Wittenberg and instead stay in Denmark with them. Gertrude echoes his words. As
Hamlet vows to obey, Claudius and Gertrude leave.

Alone, Hamlet reveals the depth of his despair, saying that were it not against God's law, he would
contemplate suicide. He speaks of how weary he is of life, and we come to understand that it is not just
his father's death that has Hamlet in such sorrow but also the quick marriage of his mother to his uncle.
Hamlet's grief is interrupted by the entrance of Horatio, Marcellus, and Barnardo, who have come to tell
him of the ghost they've seen. Wildly shocked and interested, Hamlet peppers them with questions and
makes plans to stand watch with them that night. As the men part, Hamlet asks them to tell no one else
what they have seen. The others, swearing their loyalty to him, give their word.

Summary: Act I, scene 3

As Laertes prepares to head back to France, he and Ophelia talk about his trip and promise to write to
each other, but Laertes quickly steers the conversation to the topic of Ophelia and Hamlet's relationship.
Showing the concern of a thoughtful older brother, Laertes warns Ophelia not to take Hamlet's attention
too seriously. Laertes tells her that a person of Hamlet's stature does not have the liberty to choose a
mate, and reminds Ophelia that the welfare of a prince's country may depend upon that choice.
Reciprocating Hamlet's affection, he adds, could damage her reputation.

While Ophelia promises to take Laertes's counsel to heart, their conversation is interrupted by their
father, Polonius, who is surprised to find Laertes still in residence. Once Laertes leaves, Polonius echoes
much of his warnings about Hamlet, dismissing Ophelia's claims that Hamlet's expressions of love are
sincere. As the scene closes, Polonius forbids her to spend any more time with Hamlet, and Ophelia
submits.

Summary: Act I, scene 4

Hamlet and Horatio accompany Marcellus on his watch. Near midnight they hear much revelry from
within the castle, and Hamlet remarks that the king is drinking and partying again. He talks at length
about how such wild behavior has given Denmark a riotous reputation, taking away from the country's
strengths and positive qualities.
Hamlet carries the thought further, talking about how one's faults can overwhelm all the positive
attributes one has. Hamlet is then stunned by the ghost's appearance and that it indeed appears to be
his father. He begs the ghost to speak to him and to tell him why he has come.
In response, the ghost beckons Hamlet to come away with him, which Hamlet is eager to do. Horatio
cautions Hamlet not to follow the spirit, fearing it is dangerous. Both Horatio and Marcellus try to stop
Hamlet from following, but the prince is determined. He breaks free and follows the ghost. Horatio and
Marcellus, in turn, follow Hamlet.
Summary: Act I, scene 5

Hamlet follows the ghost to another part of the castle wall, where the ghost tells Hamlet he must avenge
his murder. The ghost explains that the citizens of Denmark believe the king died after being bitten by a
snake while napping in his orchard. In reality, the only "serpent" he encountered was his
brother Claudius, who now wears the crown.

The ghost tells Hamlet how Claudius poured poison into his ears as he slept, thus stealing his life, crown,
and wife. Even as he reiterates his demand that Hamlet take revenge on Claudius, the ghost tells the
prince not to touch his mother, Queen Gertrude. Insisting Hamlet to leave his mother to heaven, the
ghost disappears as dawn arrives.

Hamlet, overwhelmed by what he has seen and heard, is a mixture of grief, anger, and confusion. He
flies from one thought to another in a soliloquy that is both sorrowful and raging. He closes with a
commitment to the ghost's entreaty just before Horatio and Marcellus find him.

Horatio and Marcellus are eager to know what transpired between Hamlet and the ghost, but Hamlet
responds to their questions by talking in confusing circles. He asks them to promise that they will tell no
one of what they have seen and heard that night. He presses them to swear on his sword, and adds that
they must hold to their promise no matter how strangely he acts in the future. Three times, before they
can swear, the ghost cries out "Swear!" Horatio and Marcellus promise, and as the three men leave, his
final words capture both his rage and sorrow.

Summary: Act II, scene 1

Polonius sends his servant, Reynaldo, to France to bring Laertes money and snoop into his son's life.
Polonius suggests Reynaldo should ask around about Laertes to discover how he is living. In directing
Reynaldo, Polonius urges his servant to suggest some negative qualities about Laertes—gaming,
drinking, fencing, and swearing—when he talks with people. Polonius is confident this method will yield
the truth about Laertes's behavior abroad.

In the second half of the scene, Ophelia enters distraught. She relates to Polonius that Hamlet came to
her in her chamber disheveled and confused. Believing Hamlet to be mad with lust for Ophelia, Polonius
asks if she has said anything upsetting to him. Ophelia answers that she has not spoken with him but
has simply refused his letters and denied him any contact, as Polonius instructed.

Polonius is convinced that by telling Ophelia to avoid Hamlet, he has inadvertently fanned the flames of
the prince's love. He tells Ophelia that they must tell the king and queen about the romantic connection
between Hamlet and her, adding that concealing it might cause more grief than the knowledge that
Hamlet has fallen for someone "beneath him."

Summary: Act II, scene 2

Claudius and Gertrude hire Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two of Hamlet's childhood friends, to spend
time with Hamlet, hoping they will be able to determine the cause of his strange behavior.
After attendants take the friends to visit Hamlet, Polonius, followed closely by ambassadors Voltemand
and Cornelius, join the royal pair. The ambassadors, who have returned from speaking with the king of
Norway about Fortinbras, are happy to report their visit as successful.

"Old Norway," they say, has commanded Fortinbras to abandon any acts of force against Denmark.
Fortinbras has vowed obedience to his uncle and has turned his attention to Poland, where he originally
told his uncle he was going. Voltemand notes that Fortinbras has asked permission for him and his men
to pass through Denmark en route to Poland.

As the ambassadors exit, Polonius tells Claudius and Gertrude he thinks Hamlet's love for Ophelia is
driving him mad. Polonius then reads them a letter sent from Hamlet to Ophelia, in which he proclaims
his love for her. Together, Polonius, Claudius, and Gertrude decide to lay a trap, orchestrating a meeting
between Hamlet and Ophelia and watching from afar.

Hamlet meets Polonius while walking in the hall. They talk a little, with Hamlet verbally sparring in clever
if not chaotic circles around the older man. Polonius, taking this as evidence of the prince's madness,
excuses himself to go in search of Ophelia and plan a "chance" meeting.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern appear, and Hamlet asks several times what brings them to Elsinore.
Although they try to evade his questions, Hamlet quickly figures out that they've been sent to spy on him.
The one good bit of information they give Hamlet is that a company of players has come to Elsinore.
With some excitement, Hamlet greets the players. Hamlet arranges for them to perform The Murder of
Gonzago in the court the following night—and to incorporate some lines he will give them. Once Hamlet
is alone, he speaks aloud, berating himself for his lack of action with the task the ghost has given him.
He calls himself a coward and a villain, railing in his grief. Then, pulling himself together, he muses aloud
about his plan to use the play—augmented with lines he will write—as a means to probe Claudius's
conscience. Hamlet is convinced that if Claudius reacts guiltily, it will prove that the ghost is a noble spirit
and not a devil come to trick him.

Summary: Act III, scene 1

Claudius and Gertrude interrogate Rosencrantz and Guildenstern about their discussion with Hamlet.
The men have little to report except that the company of players who arrived shortly after they did
seemed to have interested and pleased the prince, and that he has directed them to perform for the court
this evening. Claudius sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to watch the prince and encourage him in
this endeavor.

When they leave, Claudius sends Gertrude off so that he, Polonius, and Ophelia can plan the "chance"
meeting between Ophelia and Hamlet. Through this staged meeting, Claudius and Polonius hope to test
Polonius's thought that it is Hamlet's love for Ophelia that is so distracting him. They instruct Ophelia to
stroll the hall, seemingly absorbed in a book, while they hide nearby to watch and listen.
Hamlet eventually appears, lost in his thoughts and apparently contemplating suicide. Catching sight of
Ophelia, he interrupts his thoughts to speak with her. Ophelia tries to return some gifts he gave her, but,
suspicious of her motives, he denies they are from him. He further denies that he loved her, which serves
to bewilder and wound Ophelia. The two have an impassioned discussion, reeling in confusion and a
mutual feeling of betrayal. Hamlet orders her to a nunnery and leaves.

Claudius and Polonius come to Ophelia's side, shocked by what they have witnessed. Polonius insists
Hamlet's love for Ophelia—love that Polonius made her refuse—is at the root of the prince's madness.
Claudius, already beginning to show a guilty conscience as an earlier aside suggests, is now convinced
that Hamlet is brooding on something bigger—something that could be dangerous to his position.
Although he initially refutes the idea that Hamlet is mad, he does say that madness should not go
unchecked. He decides to send Hamlet to England, away from the stress of Denmark. Polonius agrees
that sending him abroad is the best course, but also suggests trying one last idea: sending the queen to
speak with Hamlet after the play that evening, while he (Polonius) hides nearby to witness the
conversation. Claudius consents.

Summary: Act III, scene 2

Hamlet coaches the actors in anticipation of the performance they are about to give
for Claudius, Gertrude, and the rest of the court. As the players leave the prince to ready
themselves, Polonius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern enter, announcing that the king and queen will join
them shortly. Hamlet sends the three of them off to hurry the players just as Horatio arrives.
Hamlet tells Horatio of his plan to use The Mousetrap—his version of The Murder of Gonzago—to catch
the king off guard. He further reports that he has amended the presentation so that one scene re-creates
what the ghost told him to be the circumstances of his father's murder. Most importantly, Hamlet instructs
Horatio to watch the king's reaction.

As the play unfolds, Hamlet's additions to the original piece make for a strong, disturbing performance. It
becomes too much for Claudius, who leaps to his feet and leaves. In the ensuing confusion, the play is
halted, and all leave but Hamlet and Horatio, who recap what they've just seen.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern enter, telling Hamlet that the queen wishes to see him. They go around
and around with Hamlet, trying to convince him to go to the queen. They are joined by Polonius, who
speaks to Hamlet as if he is humoring a fool. They rouse Hamlet's anger, and he sends them off with
word that he will join Gertrude soon. Left to his own thoughts, Hamlet's resolve to kill Claudius rises
again, even as he plans to visit Gertrude.

Summary: Act III, scene 3

This scene takes place the same evening as the production of The Murder of Gonzago. After everyone
has dispersed from the hall where the play was performed, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern meet
with Claudius. Claudius tells them that Hamlet, being dangerous in his madness, must be taken away to
England for everyone's safety. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern accept the assignment and leave to
prepare.
Polonius comes to Claudius, reporting that Hamlet is headed to see Gertrude in her chambers. Polonius
hurries off to hide somewhere in the vicinity so that he may observe the interaction between mother and
son.

Left alone, Claudius contemplates the murder that audiences now know he committed. In a soliloquy, he
talks about seeking forgiveness for his sin and praying over it—and he wonders about being pardoned
for it if he retains all the power he gained in committing it. From his speech, it appears Claudius wants to
be pardoned for his deed but not if getting pardoned means giving up crown and queen.
Hamlet, en route to see his mother, finds Claudius attempting to pray. He momentarily considers killing
the king then and there but realizes—according to beliefs of the time—that if he were to kill Claudius
while in prayer and seeking repentance (which he thinks Claudius is)—he would inadvertently send him
straight to heaven. With that, he moves on to find his mother.

Summary: Act III, scene 4

This scene also takes place on the night of the production of The Murder of Gonzago in
which Hamlet has tried to prove to himself that Claudius has killed his father. In the queen's
chambers, Polonius instructs Gertrude on speaking with Hamlet and hides himself behind a tapestry
before Hamlet enters.
When Hamlet arrives, he and Gertrude begin talking, with Hamlet verbally sparring and growing angry
with her. His behavior frightens Gertrude, and she cries out. Polonius cries out in anger from his hiding
spot. In response, Hamlet shouts that he hears a rat and stabs Polonius through the tapestry, killing him.
As Hamlet pulls aside the tapestry to find Polonius, both he and Gertrude are hysterical. She is terrified
and filled with sorrow for Polonius; Hamlet rages at Gertrude with all the thoughts that have been
festering in his brain, including the ideas that Claudius killed King Hamlet and, worse yet, that she may
have been part of the scheme to kill his father.

In the chaos of their exchange, the ghost appears. He tells Hamlet he has returned both to put him back
on task and to remind him to leave his mother alone. As Hamlet responds to the ghost, it becomes clear
Gertrude neither sees nor hears the spirit, and the exchange further convinces her of his madness.
Hamlet reminds Gertrude he is being banished to England, and that he knows she has hired
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on him. He leaves her, dragging Polonius's body with him.

Summary: Act 4, scene 1

King Claudius and Queen Gertrude, along with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, come together once
again in Elsinore Castle. Gertrude dismisses Rosencrantz and Guildenstern so that she may tell
Claudius of her meeting with Hamlet. Comparing the prince's madness with the wild power of the wind
and the sea vying to see which is mightier, Gertrude tells Claudius of all that transpired between them,
including how Hamlet killed Polonius.
Claudius says Hamlet must be sent away at once, and immediately summons Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern. He tells them Hamlet has slain Polonius, asks them to find Hamlet, and instructs them to
bring Polonius's body to the chapel. Claudius and Gertrude leave to inform their closest supporters,
hoping they can control the fallout.
Summary: Act 4, scene 2

In a passageway somewhere in Elsinore castle, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern find Hamlet. They insist
he tell them where Polonius's body is so they can take it to the chapel, but he at once runs verbal circles
around them and taunts them. When he won't tell them where the body is, they demand he go with them
to the king. He agrees to go with them, and then sprints away, as if in a game of hide-and-seek.
Summary: Act 4, scene 3

Claudius, by himself, talks of his intent to send Hamlet to England—a plan made all the more reasonable
because Hamlet has killed Polonius. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern come to the king with Hamlet in tow.
When Claudius asks the whereabouts of Polonius's body, he too is answered in riddles until at last, as if
tired of the game, Hamlet tells them where to find the corpse.
Claudius then tells Hamlet they must send him away—for his safety—to England. Hamlet consents, and
as he exits, Claudius instructs Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to follow, saying they must set sail tonight.
Once alone, Claudius reveals the papers he has sent with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern ordering
Hamlet's death.

Summary: Act 4, scene 4

In this scene, set somewhere near Elsinore Castle, Hamlet, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern are headed
for the ship that will carry them to England. They pass Fortinbras and his army, which is passing Elsinore
en route to Poland. Hamlet stops to speak with the captain whom Fortinbras has sent to greet
King Claudius and thank him for permission to pass through Denmark.
When the captain presses on, Hamlet stops a moment, alone, and compares himself to young
Fortinbras. He rebukes himself for his failure to seek revenge for his murdered father when Fortinbras,
another young prince who also lost his father, goes to war for honor over a worthless piece of land. At
the close of this soliloquy, he again pledges himself to the act the ghost has assigned him.

Summary: Act 4, scene 5

Back at Elsinore Castle, Ophelia has requested an audience with Gertrude. Having heard that Ophelia
has been acting strangely since her father's death, the queen does not want to speak with her.
But Horatio and other advisers suggest it might be better to speak with her than to let her wild talk and
accusations fall on fertile ears. Gertrude submits.
Ophelia enters and is obviously in a disturbed state, singing and talking in a disconnected
way. Claudius joins them and both king and queen are shocked by Ophelia's behavior.
When Ophelia leaves, Claudius informs Gertrude that Laertes has secretly returned from France after
hearing of his father's death. As they speak, there is noise beyond their door, and a messenger enters to
warn king and queen that Laertes, leading a riotous group of people, has come to see them.
Laertes enters; though angry, he convinces his followers to wait outside. He confronts Claudius and
Gertrude, demanding answers and his father's body. As the king and queen try to calm him, Ophelia
returns, still singing, offering flowers, and wandering in her distraction. Laertes's anger is nearly
overwhelmed by his grief at the sight of his sister. Claudius seizes Laertes's moment of weakness and,
with comforting words and gestures, convinces Laertes to come with him so that he may explain the
circumstances of Polonius's death. Claudius promises Laertes that he will give his crown and kingdom if
they find him—or Gertrude—at fault, but otherwise they will stand beside Laertes and help him through
this tragedy.

Summary: Act 4, scene 6

Horatio is approached by sailors bearing letters from Hamlet. One of the letters is for him; the others are
for the king. In the letter to Horatio, Hamlet explains that en route to England their ship was overtaken by
pirates, and he alone was taken prisoner. He explains the pirates are "thieves of mercy," and he is to do
something for them. He asks that Horatio help the sailors get the other letters to the king and then have
the sailors deliver Horatio to Hamlet. Having read his letter, Horatio departs with the sailors to find
Hamlet.

Summary: Act 4, scene 7

Claudius and Laertes are together in Elsinore. As promised, Claudius explains the circumstances
of Polonius's death to Laertes, as well as his reasoning for sending Hamlet abroad. Just as they touch on
the subject of Laertes's revenge for his father and sister, a messenger enters with letters for the king
from Hamlet.
Hamlet informs Claudius that he is back in Denmark and wishes to meet with him the next day. Hamlet
writes that he will explain everything when they meet. Knowing that Hamlet has returned, Claudius and
Laertes devise a plan for a fencing match where Laertes will use a poisoned foil. As a backup plan,
Claudius will also have a poisoned drink waiting for him.
Just as the plan is settled, the queen enters with news that Ophelia has drowned.

Summary: Act 5, scene 1

In a churchyard, a sexton and a gravedigger prepare a grave. As they go about their business, they are
wrapped in their own discussions. Some of what they say is banter; some of what they say has cultural
and religious aspects to it.
As one of the men ambles off for liquor, Hamlet and Horatio converge. They speak to the gravedigger,
asking about his work, and he tells them he has been a gravedigger since King Hamlet defeated
Fortinbras. When Hamlet asks how long that has been, the gravedigger notes that it's been 30 years,
having taken place on the day that young Hamlet was born. As they talk, the gravedigger hands Hamlet
a skull; it turns out to be the skull of the former king's jester, Yorick. Hamlet, examining the skull, is struck
by the information; he tells Horatio that he had known Yorick well.
A procession appears. Claudius, Gertrude, and Laertes lead, followed by a coffin and various other
courtiers and attendants. By what people begin to say, it dawns on Hamlet that this is Ophelia's funeral.
With Horatio beside him, he watches in disbelief.
Overcome by grief, Laertes jumps into Ophelia's grave, shouting to be buried with her. Hamlet, also
overcome, reveals himself and jumps in after Laertes, also proclaiming his sorrow. The two fight, but
Horatio and others in attendance separate them and pull them from the grave. Hamlet professes his love
for Ophelia—as well as his admiration for Laertes—and runs off. Claudius sends Horatio after Hamlet
and steadies Laertes's resolve, telling him his opportunity for revenge will be here soon.

Summary: Act 5, scene 2

In the final scene, all are back at Elsinore Castle. Hamlet gives Horatio the details of the failed journey to
England. He describes discovering that the papers carried by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern called for
Hamlet's death. Hamlet tells Horatio that he replaced the original documents with forgeries that called for
the bearers to be put to death—and that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were carrying them when the
pirates captured Hamlet.

A courtier, Osric, approaches Horatio and Hamlet with a message for Hamlet from the king. Osric tells
Hamlet that he has been invited to test his skills in a friendly duel with Laertes. Claudius wagers against
Hamlet's abilities and wishes to know if Hamlet will accept the challenge. Hamlet does.

People gather for the duel: Claudius, Gertrude, Laertes, Hamlet, Horatio, and a number of lords and
attendants. Hamlet and Laertes shake hands, and Hamlet asks for Laertes's forgiveness.
The duel begins, and Hamlet hits Laertes. The king cheers on Hamlet and, with a false display of
affection, drops a poisoned pearl into Hamlet's cup of wine. An attendant offers the cup to Hamlet, who
waves him off. After Hamlet hits Laertes a second time, Gertrude reaches for the drink. Claudius
attempts to stop her, but she insists and unknowingly drinks the poison. Yet again, Shakespeare uses
dramatic irony to great effect, as Claudius accidentally murders his wife.

Laertes, becoming desperate, finally scores a hit on Hamlet. A scuffle ensues, the foils are exchanged,
and, as the duel resumes, Hamlet makes his third hit on Laertes—this time with the poisoned foil. Before
anything more can occur, the queen succumbs to the poison she has drunk and collapses. Laertes,
realizing that he has been hit by his own poisoned foil, cries out that he has been killed by his own
treachery. On the heels of his words, the queen realizes what is happening, exclaims that the drink has
been poisoned, and dies.

Hamlet calls for the doors of the hall to be locked at once and demands they get to the cause of the
treachery. Laertes speaks up in his final moments, informing everyone that he and Hamlet have been
poisoned by the foil, that Gertrude has also been poisoned, and that the king is to blame. In a fury,
Hamlet hits the king with the tainted foil and forces him to drink from the poisoned cup. Claudius soon
dies. Laertes calls out, begging Hamlet's forgiveness and saying that if they forgive each other, neither
his nor his father's death will be on Hamlet and Hamlet's death will not be on him. They agree as Laertes
closes his eyes.

Hamlet, now failing, bids his dead mother goodbye and collapses. Horatio comforts him and attempts to
drink the last of the wine, but Hamlet stops him. Hamlet implores Horatio to live on and, if he loved him,
to take his story to the world.

Sounds in the castle announce the return of Fortinbras from Poland and the arrival of the English
ambassadors. Hamlet prophesizes that Fortinbras will become king of Denmark. As he dies, Fortinbras
and the ambassadors enter, shocked at the carnage around them. Horatio tells the arrivals what has
occurred, and Fortinbras asks that Hamlet be borne away with the honor of a soldier.

==== Hamlet Full Book Summary =====

On a dark winter night, a ghost walks the ramparts of Elsinore Castle in Denmark. Discovered first by a
pair of watchmen, then by the scholar Horatio, the ghost resembles the recently deceased King Hamlet,
whose brother Claudius has inherited the throne and married the king’s widow, Queen Gertrude. When
Horatio and the watchmen bring Prince Hamlet, the son of Gertrude and the dead king, to see the ghost,
it speaks to him, declaring ominously that it is indeed his father’s spirit, and that he was murdered by
none other than Claudius. Ordering Hamlet to seek revenge on the man who usurped his throne and
married his wife, the ghost disappears with the dawn.

Prince Hamlet devotes himself to avenging his father’s death, but, because he is contemplative and
thoughtful by nature, he delays, entering into a deep melancholy and even apparent madness. Claudius
and Gertrude worry about the prince’s erratic behavior and attempt to discover its cause. They employ a
pair of Hamlet’s friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to watch him. When Polonius, the pompous Lord
Chamberlain, suggests that Hamlet may be mad with love for his daughter, Ophelia, Claudius agrees to
spy on Hamlet in conversation with the girl. But though Hamlet certainly seems mad, he does not seem
to love Ophelia: he orders her to enter a nunnery and declares that he wishes to ban marriages.

A group of traveling actors comes to Elsinore, and Hamlet seizes upon an idea to test his uncle’s guilt.
He will have the players perform a scene closely resembling the sequence by which Hamlet imagines his
uncle to have murdered his father, so that if Claudius is guilty, he will surely react. When the moment of
the murder arrives in the theater, Claudius leaps up and leaves the room. Hamlet and Horatio agree that
this proves his guilt. Hamlet goes to kill Claudius but finds him praying. Since he believes that killing
Claudius while in prayer would send Claudius’s soul to heaven, Hamlet considers that it would be an
inadequate revenge and decides to wait. Claudius, now frightened of Hamlet’s madness and fearing for
his own safety, orders that Hamlet be sent to England at once.

Hamlet goes to confront his mother, in whose bedchamber Polonius has hidden behind a tapestry.
Hearing a noise from behind the tapestry, Hamlet believes the king is hiding there. He draws his sword
and stabs through the fabric, killing Polonius. For this crime, he is immediately dispatched to England
with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. However, Claudius’s plan for Hamlet includes more than
banishment, as he has given Rosencrantz and Guildenstern sealed orders for the King of England
demanding that Hamlet be put to death.

In the aftermath of her father’s death, Ophelia goes mad with grief and drowns in the river. Polonius’s
son, Laertes, who has been staying in France, returns to Denmark in a rage. Claudius convinces him that
Hamlet is to blame for his father’s and sister’s deaths. When Horatio and the king receive letters from
Hamlet indicating that the prince has returned to Denmark after pirates attacked his ship en route to
England, Claudius concocts a plan to use Laertes’ desire for revenge to secure Hamlet’s death. Laertes
will fence with Hamlet in innocent sport, but Claudius will poison Laertes’ blade so that if he draws blood,
Hamlet will die. As a backup plan, the king decides to poison a goblet, which he will give Hamlet to drink
should Hamlet score the first or second hits of the match. Hamlet returns to the vicinity of Elsinore just as
Ophelia’s funeral is taking place. Stricken with grief, he attacks Laertes and declares that he had in fact
always loved Ophelia. Back at the castle, he tells Horatio that he believes one must be prepared to die,
since death can come at any moment. A foolish courtier named Osric arrives on Claudius’s orders to
arrange the fencing match between Hamlet and Laertes.

The sword-fighting begins. Hamlet scores the first hit, but declines to drink from the king’s proffered
goblet. Instead, Gertrude takes a drink from it and is swiftly killed by the poison. Laertes succeeds in
wounding Hamlet, though Hamlet does not die of the poison immediately. First, Laertes is cut by his own
sword’s blade, and, after revealing to Hamlet that Claudius is responsible for the queen’s death, he dies
from the blade’s poison. Hamlet then stabs Claudius through with the poisoned sword and forces him to
drink down the rest of the poisoned wine. Claudius dies, and Hamlet dies immediately after achieving his
revenge.

At this moment, a Norwegian prince named Fortinbras, who has led an army to Denmark and attacked
Poland earlier in the play, enters with ambassadors from England, who report that Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern are dead. Fortinbras is stunned by the gruesome sight of the entire royal family lying
sprawled on the floor dead. He moves to take power of the kingdom. Horatio, fulfilling Hamlet’s last
request, tells him Hamlet’s tragic story. Fortinbras orders that Hamlet be carried away in a manner
befitting a fallen soldier.

==== Hamlet Full Book Analysis =====

In telling the story of a fatally indecisive character’s inability to choose the proper course to avenge his
father’s death, Hamlet explores questions of fate versus free will, whether it is better to act decisively or
let nature take its course, and ultimately if anything we do in our time on earth makes any difference.
Once he learns his uncle has killed his father, Hamlet feels duty-bound to take decisive action, but he
has so many doubts about his situation and even about his own feelings that he cannot decide what
action to take. The conflict that drives the plot of Hamlet is almost entirely internal: Hamlet wrestles with
his own doubt and uncertainty in search of something he believes strongly enough to act on. The play’s
events are side-effects of this internal struggle. Hamlet’s attempts to gather more evidence of Claudius’s
guilt alert Claudius to Hamlet’s suspicions, and as Hamlet’s internal struggle deepens, he begins to act
impulsively out of frustration, eventually murdering Polonius by mistake. The conflict of Hamlet is never
resolved: Hamlet cannot finally decide what to believe or what action to take. This lack of resolution
makes the ending of Hamlet especially horrifying: nearly all the characters are dead, but nothing has
been solved.

The play’s exposition shows us that Hamlet is in the midst of three crises: his nation is under attack, his
family is falling apart, and he feels deeply unhappy. The Ghost of the old king of Denmark appears on
the castle battlements, and the soldiers who see it believe it must be a bad omen for the kingdom. They
discuss the preparations being made against the threat from the Norwegian prince, Fortinbras. The next
scene deepens our sense that Denmark is in political crisis, as Claudius prepares a diplomatic strategy
to divert the threat from Fortinbras. We also learn that as far as Hamlet is concerned, his family is in
crisis: his father is dead and his mother has married someone Hamlet disapproves of. Hamlet is also
experiencing an internal crisis. Gertrude and Claudius are worried about his mood, and in his first
soliloquy we discover that he feels suicidal: “O that this too, too sullied flesh would melt” ([Link].).

The three crises of the play’s opening—in the kingdom, in Hamlet’s family, and in Hamlet’s mind—lay the
groundwork for the play’s inciting incident: the Ghost’s demand that Hamlet avenge his father’s death.
Hamlet accepts at once that it is his duty to take revenge, and the audience can also see that Hamlet’s
revenge would go some way to resolving the play’s three crises. By killing Claudius, Hamlet could in one
stroke remove a weak and immoral king, extract his mother from what he sees as a bad marriage, and
make himself king of Denmark. Throughout the inciting incident, however, there are hints that Hamlet’s
revenge will be derailed by an internal struggle. The Ghost warns him: “Taint not thy mind nor let thy soul
contrive/Against thy mother aught” (I.v.). When Horatio and Marcellus catch up to Hamlet after the
Ghost’s departure, Hamlet is already talking in such a deranged way that Horatio describes it as “wild
and whirling” (I.v.), and Hamlet tells them that he may fake an “antic disposition” (I.v.). The audience
understands that the coming conflict will not be between Hamlet and Claudius but between Hamlet and
his own mind.

For the whole of the second act—the play’s rising action—Hamlet delays his revenge by pretending to be
mad. We learn from Ophelia that Hamlet is behaving as if he is mad with love for her. We see him make
fun of Polonius by talking nonsense which contains half-hidden jokes at Polonius’s expense. Hamlet tells
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that he has “lost all [his] mirth” ([Link].). Only at the end of Act 2 do we learn
the reason for Hamlet’s delaying tactics: he cannot work out his true feelings about his duty to take
revenge. First, he tells us, he doesn’t feel as angry and vengeful as he thinks he should: “I[…]Peak like
John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause” ([Link].). Second, he’s worried that the Ghost wasn’t really a
ghost but a devil trying to trick him. He decides he needs more evidence of Claudius’s crime: “I’ll have
grounds/More relative than this” ([Link].).

As the rising action builds toward a climax, Hamlet’s internal struggle deepens until he starts to show
signs of really going mad. At the same time Claudius becomes suspicious of Hamlet, which creates an
external pressure on Hamlet to act. Hamlet begins Act Three debating whether or not to kill himself: “To
be or not to be—that is the question” (III.i.), and moments later he hurls misogynistic abuse at Ophelia.
He is particularly upset about women’s role in marriage and childbirth—“Why wouldst thou be a breeder
of sinners?” (III.i.)—which reminds the audience of Hamlet’s earlier disgust with his own mother and her
second marriage. The troubling development of Hamlet’s misogynistic feelings makes us wonder how
much Hamlet’s desire to kill Claudius is fuelled by the need to avenge his father’s death, and how much
his desire fuelled by Hamlet’s resentment of Claudius for taking his mother away from him. Claudius,
who is eavesdropping on Hamlet’s tirade, becomes suspicious that Hamlet’s madness presents “some
danger” (III.i.) and decides to have Hamlet sent away: Hamlet is running out of time to take his revenge.
The play’s climax arrives when Hamlet stages a play to “catch the conscience of the king” ([Link].) and get
conclusive evidence of Claudius’s guilt. By now, however, Hamlet seems to have truly gone mad. His
own behavior at the play is so provocative that when Claudius does respond badly to the play it’s unclear
whether he feels guilty about his crime or angry with Hamlet. As Claudius tries to pray, Hamlet has yet
another chance to take his revenge, and we learn that Hamlet’s apparent madness has not ended his
internal struggle over what to do: he decides not to kill Claudius for now, this time because of the risk that
Claudius will go to heaven if he dies while praying. Hamlet accuses Gertrude of being involved in his
father’s death, but he’s acting so erratically that Gertrude thinks her son is simply “mad […] as the sea
and wind/When they each contend which is the mightier” ([Link]). Again, the audience cannot know
whether Gertrude says these lines as a cover for her own guilt, or because she genuinely has no idea
what Hamlet is talking about, and thinks her son is losing his mind. Acting impulsively or madly, Hamlet
mistakes Polonius for Claudius and kills him.

The play’s falling action deals with the consequences of Polonius’s death. Hamlet is sent away, Ophelia
goes mad and Laertes returns from France to avenge his father’s death. When Hamlet comes back to
Elsinore, he no longer seems to be concerned with revenge, which he hardly mentions after this point in
the play. His internal struggle is not over, however. Now Hamlet contemplates death, but he is unable to
come to any conclusion about the meaning or purpose of death, or to resign himself to his own death. He
is, however, less squeamish about killing innocent people, and reports to Horatio how he signed the
death warrants of Rosencranz and Guildenstern to save his own life. Claudius and Laertes plot to kill
Hamlet, but the plot goes awry. Gertrude is poisoned by mistake, Laertes and Hamlet are both poisoned,
and as he dies Hamlet finally murders Claudius. Taking his revenge does not end Hamlet’s internal
struggle. He still has lots to say: “If I had time […] O I could tell you— / But let it be” ([Link].) and he asks
Horatio to tell his story when he is dead. In the final moments of the play the new king, Fortinbras, agrees
with this request: “Let us haste to hear it” ([Link].). Hamlet’s life is over, but the struggle to decide the truth
about Hamlet and his life is not.

Key Facts:

Full Title The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

Author William Shakespeare

Type Of Work Play

Genre Tragedy, revenge tragedy
Language English
Time And Place Written London, England, early seventeenth century (probably 1600–1602)
Date Of First Publication 1603, in a pirated quarto edition titled The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet;
1604 in a superior quarto edition

Protagonist Hamlet

Major Conflict Hamlet feels a responsibility to avenge his father’s murder by his uncle Claudius,
but Claudius is now the king and thus well protected. Moreover, Hamlet struggles with his doubts about
whether he can trust the ghost and whether killing Claudius is the appropriate thing to do.

Rising Action The ghost appears to Hamlet and tells Hamlet to revenge his murder; Hamlet
feigns madness to his intentions; Hamlet stages the mousetrap play; Hamlet passes up the opportunity
to kill Claudius while he is praying.
Climax When Hamlet stabs Polonius through the arras in Act III, scene iv, he commits
himself to overtly violent action and brings himself into unavoidable conflict with the king. Another
possible climax comes at the end of Act IV, scene iv, when Hamlet resolves to commit himself fully to
violent revenge.

Falling Action Hamlet is sent to England to be killed; Hamlet returns to Denmark and confronts
Laertes at Ophelia’s funeral; the fencing match; the deaths of the royal family

Setting (Time) The late medieval period, though the play’s chronological setting is notoriously
imprecise

Settings (Place) Denmark

Foreshadowing The ghost, which is taken to foreshadow an ominous future for Denmark

Tone Dark, ironic, melancholy, passionate, contemplative, desperate, violent

Themes The impossibility of certainty; the complexity of action; the mystery of death; the
nation as a diseased body

Motifs Incest and incestuous desire; ears and hearing; death and suicide; darkness and the
supernatural; misogyny

Symbols The ghost (the spiritual consequences of death); Yorick’s skull (the physical
consequences of death)

Character List:
Hamlet
The Prince of Denmark, the title character, and the protagonist. About thirty years old at the start of the
play, Hamlet is the son of Queen Gertrude and the late King Hamlet, and the nephew of the present king,
Claudius. Hamlet is melancholy, bitter, and cynical, full of hatred for his uncle’s scheming and disgust for
his mother’s sexuality. A reflective and thoughtful young man who has studied at the University of
Wittenberg, Hamlet is often indecisive and hesitant, but at other times prone to rash and impulsive acts.

Claudius
The King of Denmark, Hamlet’s uncle, and the play’s antagonist. The villain of the play, Claudius is a
calculating, ambitious politician, driven by his sexual appetites and his lust for power, but he occasionally
shows signs of guilt and human feeling—his love for Gertrude, for instance, seems sincere.

Gertrude
The Queen of Denmark, Hamlet’s mother, recently married to Claudius. Gertrude loves Hamlet deeply,
but she is a shallow, weak woman who seeks affection and status more urgently than moral rectitude or
truth.

Polonius
The Lord Chamberlain of Claudius’s court, a pompous, conniving old man. Polonius is the father of
Laertes and Ophelia.
Horatio
Hamlet’s close friend, who studied with the prince at the university in Wittenberg. Horatio is loyal and
helpful to Hamlet throughout the play. After Hamlet’s death, Horatio remains alive to tell Hamlet’s story.

Ophelia
Polonius’s daughter, a beautiful young woman with whom Hamlet has been in love. Ophelia is a sweet
and innocent young girl, who obeys her father and her brother, Laertes. Dependent on men to tell her
how to behave, she gives in to Polonius’s schemes to spy on Hamlet. Even in her lapse into madness
and death, she remains maidenly, singing songs about flowers and finally drowning in the river amid the
flower garlands she had gathered.

Laertes
Polonius’s son and Ophelia’s brother, a young man who spends much of the play in France. Passionate
and quick to action, Laertes is clearly a foil for the reflective Hamlet.

Fortinbras
The young Prince of Norway, whose father the king (also named Fortinbras) was killed by Hamlet’s
father (also named Hamlet). Now Fortinbras wishes to attack Denmark to avenge his father’s honor,
making him another foil for Prince Hamlet.

The Ghost
The specter of Hamlet’s recently deceased father. The ghost, who claims to have been murdered by
Claudius, calls upon Hamlet to avenge him. However, it is not entirely certain whether the ghost is what it
appears to be, or whether it is something else. Hamlet speculates that the ghost might be a devil sent to
deceive him and tempt him into murder, and the question of what the ghost is or where it comes from is
never definitively resolved.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

Two slightly bumbling courtiers, former friends of Hamlet from Wittenberg, who are summoned by
Claudius and Gertrude to discover the cause of Hamlet’s strange behavior.

Osric
The foolish courtier who summons Hamlet to his duel with Laertes.

Voltimand and Cornelius

Courtiers whom Claudius sends to Norway to persuade the king to prevent Fortinbras from attacking.

Marcellus and Bernardo

The officers who first see the ghost walking the ramparts of Elsinore and who summon Horatio to witness
it. Marcellus is present when Hamlet first encounters the ghost.

Francisco
A soldier and guardsman at Elsinore.

Reynaldo
Polonius’s servant, who is sent to France by Polonius to check up on and spy on Laertes.

Themes:
The Impossibility of Certainty

What separates Hamlet from other revenge plays (and maybe from every play written before it) is that
the action we expect to see, particularly from Hamlet himself, is continually postponed while Hamlet tries
to obtain more certain knowledge about what he is doing. This play poses many questions that other
plays would simply take for granted. Can we have certain knowledge about ghosts? Is the ghost what it
appears to be, or is it really a misleading fiend? Does the ghost have reliable knowledge about its own
death, or is the ghost itself deluded? Moving to more earthly matters: How can we know for certain the
facts about a crime that has no witnesses? Can Hamlet know the state of Claudius’s soul by watching his
behavior? If so, can he know the facts of what Claudius did by observing the state of his soul? Can
Claudius (or the audience) know the state of Hamlet’s mind by observing his behavior and listening to his
speech? Can we know whether our actions will have the consequences we want them to have? Can we
know anything about the afterlife? Many people have seen Hamlet as a play about indecisiveness, and
thus about Hamlet’s failure to act appropriately. It might be more interesting to consider that the play
shows us how many uncertainties our lives are built upon, and how many unknown quantities are taken
for granted when people act or when they evaluate one another’s actions.

The Complexity Of Action

Directly related to the theme of certainty is the theme of action. How is it possible to take reasonable,
effective, purposeful action? In Hamlet, the question of how to act is affected not only by rational
considerations, such as the need for certainty, but also by emotional, ethical, and psychological factors.
Hamlet himself appears to distrust the idea that it’s even possible to act in a controlled, purposeful way.
When he does act, he prefers to do it blindly, recklessly, and violently. The other characters obviously
think much less about “action” in the abstract than Hamlet does, and are therefore less troubled about
the possibility of acting effectively. They simply act as they feel is appropriate. But in some sense they
prove that Hamlet is right, because all of their actions miscarry. Claudius possesses himself of queen
and crown through bold action, but his conscience torments him, and he is beset by threats to his
authority (and, of course, he dies). Laertes resolves that nothing will distract him from acting out his
revenge, but he is easily influenced and manipulated into serving Claudius’s ends, and his poisoned
rapier is turned back upon himself.

The Mystery Of Death

In the aftermath of his father’s murder, Hamlet is obsessed with the idea of death, and over the course of
the play he considers death from a great many perspectives. He ponders both the spiritual aftermath of
death, embodied in the ghost, and the physical remainders of the dead, such as by Yorick’s skull and the
decaying corpses in the cemetery. Throughout, the idea of death is closely tied to the themes of
spirituality, truth, and uncertainty in that death may bring the answers to Hamlet’s deepest questions,
ending once and for all the problem of trying to determine truth in an ambiguous world. And, since death
is both the cause and the consequence of revenge, it is intimately tied to the theme of revenge and
justice—Claudius’s murder of King Hamlet initiates Hamlet’s quest for revenge, and Claudius’s death is
the end of that quest. The question of his own death plagues Hamlet as well, as he repeatedly
contemplates whether or not suicide is a morally legitimate action in an unbearably painful world.
Hamlet’s grief and misery is such that he frequently longs for death to end his suffering, but he fears that
if he commits suicide, he will be consigned to eternal suffering in hell because of the Christian religion’s
prohibition of suicide. In his famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy (III.i), Hamlet philosophically concludes
that no one would choose to endure the pain of life if he or she were not afraid of what will come after
death, and that it is this fear which causes complex moral considerations to interfere with the capacity for
action.

The Nation As A Diseased Body

Everything is connected in Hamlet, including the welfare of the royal family and the health of the state as
a whole. The play’s early scenes explore the sense of anxiety and dread that surrounds the transfer of
power from one ruler to the next. Throughout the play, characters draw explicit connections between the
moral legitimacy of a ruler and the health of the nation. Denmark is frequently described as a physical
body made ill by the moral corruption of Claudius and Gertrude, and many observers interpret the
presence of the ghost as a supernatural omen indicating that “[s]omething is rotten in the state of
Denmark” ([Link].67). The dead King Hamlet is portrayed as a strong, forthright ruler under whose guard
the state was in good health, while Claudius, a wicked politician, has corrupted and compromised
Denmark to satisfy his own appetites. At the end of the play, the rise to power of the upright Fortinbras
suggests that Denmark will be strengthened once again.

Performance

Hamlet includes many references to performance of all kinds – both theatrical performance and the way
people perform in daily life. In his first appearance, Hamlet draws a distinction between outward behavior
— “actions that a man might play”— and real feelings: “that within which passeth show” ([Link].). However,
the more time we spend with Hamlet, the harder it becomes to tell what he is really feeling and what he is
performing. He announces in Act One, scene five that he is going to pretend to be mad (“put an antic
disposition on”.) In Act Two, scene one, Ophelia describes Hamlet’s mad behavior as a comical
performance. However, when Hamlet tells Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that “I have lost all my mirth,”
he seems genuinely depressed. Generations of readers have argued about whether Hamlet is really mad
or just performing madness. It’s impossible to know for sure – by the end of the play, even Hamlet
himself doesn’t seem to know the difference between performance and reality. Hamlet further explores
the idea of performance by regularly reminding the audience that we are watching a play. When Polonius
says that at university he “did enact Julius Caesar” ([Link]), contemporary audiences would have thought of
Shakespeare’s own Julius Caesar, which was written around the same time as Hamlet. The actor who
played Polonius may have played Julius Caesar as well. The device of the play within the play
gives Hamlet further opportunities to comment on the nature of theater. By constantly reminding the
audience that what we’re watching is a performance, Hamlet invites us to think about the fact that
something fake can feel real, and vice versa. Hamlet himself points out that acting is powerful because
it’s indistinguishable from reality: “The purpose of playing […] is to hold as ’twere the mirror up to Nature”
([Link].). That’s why he believes that the Players can “catch the conscience of the King” ([Link].). By
repeatedly showing us that performance can feel real, Hamlet makes us question what “reality” actually
is.

Madness

One of the central questions of Hamlet is whether the main character has lost his mind or is only
pretending to be mad. Hamlet’s erratic behavior and nonsensical speech can be interpreted as a ruse to
get the other characters to believe he’s gone mad. On the other hand, his behavior may be a logical
response to the “mad” situation he finds himself in – his father has been murdered by his uncle, who is
now his stepfather. Initially, Hamlet himself seems to believe he’s sane – he describes his plans to “put
an antic disposition on” and tells Rosencrantz and Guildenstern he is only mad when the wind blows
“north-north-west” – in other words, his madness is something he can turn on and off at will. By the end
of the play, however, Hamlet seems to doubt his own sanity. Referring to himself in the third person, he
says “And when he’s not himself does harm Laertes,” suggesting Hamlet has become estranged from his
former, sane self. Referring to his murder of Polonius, he says, “Who does it then? His madness.” At the
same time, Hamlet’s excuse of madness absolves him of murder, so it can also be read as the workings
of a sane and cunning mind.

Doubt
In Hamlet, the main character’s doubt creates a world where very little is known for sure. Hamlet thinks,
but isn’t entirely sure, that his uncle killed his father. He believes he sees his father’s Ghost, but he isn’t
sure he should believe in the Ghost or listen to what the Ghost tells him: “I’ll have grounds / More relative
than this.” In his “to be or not to be” soliloquy, Hamlet suspects he should probably just kill himself, but
doubt about what lies beyond the grave prevents him from acting. Hamlet is so wracked with doubt, he
even works to infect other characters with his lack of certainty, as when he tells Ophelia “you should not
have believed me” when he told her he loved her. As a result, the audience doubts Hamlet’s reliability as
a protagonist. We are left with many doubts about the action – whether Gertrude was having an affair
with Claudius before he killed Hamlet’s father; whether Hamlet is sane or mad; what Hamlet’s true
feelings are for Ophelia.

Symbols:
Yorick’s Skull

In Hamlet, physical objects are rarely used to represent thematic ideas. One important exception is
Yorick’s skull, which Hamlet discovers in the graveyard in the first scene of Act V. As Hamlet speaks to
the skull and about the skull of the king’s former jester, he fixates on death’s inevitability and the
disintegration of the body. He urges the skull to “get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her paint
an inch thick, to this favor she must come”—no one can avoid death (V.i.178–179). He traces the skull’s
mouth and says, “Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft,” indicating his fascination
with the physical consequences of death (V.i.174–175). This latter idea is an important motif throughout
the play, as Hamlet frequently makes comments referring to every human body’s eventual decay, noting
that Polonius will be eaten by worms, that even kings are eaten by worms, and that dust from the
decayed body of Alexander the Great might be used to stop a hole in a beer barrel.

Protagonist:
The protagonist of Hamlet is Hamlet. When we meet him, Hamlet in a state of internal crisis. He feels
depressed, disgusted by his mother’s remarriage, and angry that his uncle has usurped Denmark’s
throne. Under these conditions, the Ghost seems to offer Hamlet exactly what he needs: an excuse to
punish his mother and assassinate his uncle, thereby avenging his father. However, Hamlet cannot bring
himself to act. He struggles internally with whether or not to kill Claudius. He wonders whether he has
enough motivation to commit murder, and whether he can justify murder in the first place. He also
questions the authenticity of the Ghost’s story. Hamlet’s internal struggle deepens as the play goes on,
leading Elsinore into increasing turmoil. For instance, his disgust with his mother grows into full-blown
misogyny, which contributes to Ophelia’s psychological torment and eventually to her death. By the end
of the play, Hamlet poses a threat to the Danish crown, which forces the king to plot Hamlet’s
assassination. The plot goes awry, resulting not only in Hamlet’s death, but also in the deaths of nearly
every major character in the play and the end of the royal family’s rule over Denmark.

Throughout the play Hamlet largely remains mysterious to the play’s other characters. Claudius,
Gertrude, Polonius, Horatio, and others continuously try and fail to understand Hamlet’s state of mind.
One reason Hamlet’s so mysterious is that he spends so much time alone, talking to himself. This means
that few other characters have direct access to his thoughts. But another reason Hamlet remains so
mysterious relates to the way he deliberately obscures his thoughts when conversing with others. Hamlet
frequently talks circles around other characters, intentionally making himself difficult to understand. In Act
Two, scene ii, for instance, Hamlet feigns madness and convinces Polonius that he’s lost his mind. But
the joke’s on Polonius, since Hamlet’s seemingly senseless speech actually does make sense—it’s just
designed to go over Polonius’s head, allowing Hamlet to make fun of the old man without him knowing.
Here and elsewhere in the play, Hamlet feigns madness in order to manipulate others. In the process he
succeeds in keeping his real thoughts to himself. And the more Hamlet keeps to himself, the more
anxiety he causes in Elsinore. Hence, Hamlet’s deliberate obscurity makes a significant contribution to
the play’s downward spiral into chaos.
Antagonist:
Claudius is the primary antagonist in Hamlet. He thwarts Hamlet by killing his father. And when he
usurps the Danish throne, Claudius denies Hamlet the future that rightfully belongs to him. Claudius
additionally frustrates Hamlet by marrying his mother, Gertrude. Hamlet and Gertrude previously enjoyed
a loving relationship, but her remarriage fatally compromises their bond. Not only must Gertrude divide
her loyalties, but Hamlet must also grapple with his disgust at what he considers a traitorous, near-
incestuous marriage. Yet despite Hamlet’s frustration with his mother, his chief enemy remains Claudius,
who is driven by desire for love and power. Claudius reveals as much during his confession in Act Three,
when he admits that he can’t truly repent because he retains possession of the goods that he acquired
through sin—that is, Gertrude’s hand and the Danish throne. Unable to repent, Claudius seeks to rid
himself of Hamlet instead. In Act Four he sends Hamlet to England with a sealed letter instructing the
English king to execute the bearer. When this plan goes awry, Claudius hatches another plot involving
Laertes slaying Hamlet with a poisoned-tipped sword. The second plan succeeds, but also results in
Claudius’s own death.

As much as Claudius stands in Hamlet’s way, Hamlet also functions as his own antagonist. Hamlet is a
student of philosophy, and has learned to master the fine art of careful thinking. Yet Hamlet’s mastery of
logic and philosophical speculation has also resulted in a deep indecisiveness that makes it difficult for
him to take the steps necessary to avenge his father’s murder. Throughout the play Hamlet remains
paralyzed, incapable of breaking free from his own thoughts. For instance, he struggles to determine how
he is supposed to feel about his father’s death, and whether or not he can morally justify killing Claudius.
He also longs for clear answers to several questions. He wants to know what really happened to his
father, and whether or not he can trust Ophelia. He also wants to know what will happen to him when he
dies, and whether Claudius will go to Heaven or Hell. Finally, he wants to know why he is so unhappy.
Because Hamlet can’t answer any of these questions with certainty, he finds it impossible to decide how
to act. In the end, Hamlet’s indecision defeats him, and he goes to his death still uncertain about
everything.

Setting:
“Elsinore” is the English spelling of Helsingør, a town on the eastern coast of Denmark. In Shakespeare’s
lifetime, Helsingør was an important military location, the stronghold from which the King of Denmark
controlled a narrow stretch of sea. A fortress had stood in the town since the middle ages, and between
1574 and 1585 Frederick II of Denmark rebuilt the fortress as a magnificent castle. Will Kemp, a member
of Shakespeare’s acting company, probably visited the castle at Helsingør to perform for Frederick, who
was an enthusiastic patron of theatre, so Shakespeare likely knew where the town was and what its
castle was like. The threat of invasion from neighboring countries is essential to the plot of Hamlet, which
ends with the Norwegian prince Fortinbras storming the castle. The threat of invasion also contributes
to Hamlet’s mood of anxious uncertainty.

Frederick II’s castle was the largest of its kind in Renaissance Europe. The castle made Helsingør famous
as a cultural center, and Hamlet’s Elsinore is also a cultural center. Just like Frederick, Claudius is visited
by travelling actors. Hamlet and his friend Horatio have come to Elsinore from Wittenberg, Europe’s
leading university. Laertes is visiting from France, and we learn that another Frenchman, Lamord, has
recently visited Elsinore. Claudius receives tribute from the ruler of England and exchanges diplomatic
messages with the King of Norway. Accordingly, Hamlet’s story is not just about the strange customs of
an isolated backwater. On the contrary, Hamlet is about the central problems of Renaissance thought:
philosophical uncertainty, the anxiety of damnation, and the difficulty of knowing how to act morally.
Hamlet is a sophisticated, modern intellectual. He is familiar with the latest ideas from all over Europe.
His philosophical doubts express the profound uncertainties which lay at the heart of European culture
when Shakespeare was writing.

The whole play takes place inside Elsinore’s castle, except for Act Five scene one, which takes place just
outside, or possibly in the grounds of the castle. This confined setting reflects Hamlet’s situation. He feels
trapped by his duty to his father and his duty as a member of the Danish royal family, so his story is
confined behind the battlements of the Danish royal fortress. Elsinore is a place with many private
spaces. Hamlet is often alone when he delivers his soliloquys. Ophelia has a “closet”—a private space—
and so does Gertrude. Claudius prays in a private chapel. These private spaces reflect the play’s
obsession with how people behave when they are not performing for other people. At the same time, the
characters’ privacy is often disturbed or spied upon. Polonius spies on Hamlet while he talks to Ophelia.
Hamlet invades Ophelia’s closet and he spies on Claudius while he prays. When Hamlet invades
Gertrude’s closet, Polonius is spying on them both. All this spying contributes to the play’s atmosphere of
uncertainty and mistrust.

Genre:

Tragedy

Hamlet is one of the most famous tragedies ever written, and in many respects, it exhibits the features
traditionally associated with the tragic genre. In addition to the play ending with the death of Hamlet and
a host of others, Hamlet himself is a classic tragic protagonist. As the Prince of Denmark, Hamlet is a
figure whose actions matter to an entire kingdom, which means the play’s events reverberate through the
entire world of the play. Like other tragic heroes, he displays many admirable traits. Hamlet may have a
reputation for moping around Elsinore Castle with a melancholy disposition, but this is because he
grieves his beloved father’s untimely death. Despite his sadness, Hamlet is an intelligent young man of
great potential, as many other characters recognize. Fortinbras says as much in the final lines of the
play: “he was likely, had he been put on [the throne], / To have proved most royal” ([Link].373–74). Finally,
part of the reason Hamlet sets out down the dark path to destruction is that he succumbs to increasing
isolation. His isolation amplifies his inwardness, and it also has tragic effects on others. His rejection of
Ophelia, combined with his murder of her father, drives her to madness and, presumably, to suicide.

For all that it resembles a traditional tragedy, Hamlet also strains the usual conventions of the genre.
One notable example is in the “dark path” that Hamlet embarks on that leads to catastrophe. In most
tragedies it’s clear that the hero is choosing to pursue something they shouldn’t—in the case of a
revenge tragedy, the hero succumbs to a desire for murderous vengeance. In Hamlet’s case, he seems
to have every reason to take vengeance, because Claudius really did murder the king and usurp his
place, but Hamlet seems ambivalent about the Ghost’s plea for vengeance, or slow to carry it out. He
seems to want to know the truth more than anything, which doesn’t seem like a tragic choice. The choice
he makes that leads to many of the tragic consequences of the play—such as the death of Ophelia—is
his choice to isolate himself from everyone else, behave erratically, and pretend to be mad.

Another ambiguity in Hamlet’s status as a tragic hero pertains to his tragic flaw. Readers often identify
this as his indecisiveness, which makes sense, given that Hamlet himself repeatedly berates himself for
being slow to take vengeance. Laertes and Fortinbras function as Hamlet’s foils in this regard; each one
acts with surefooted certainty throughout the play. Indecisiveness is a strange tragic flaw, though,
because in most tragedies the flaw helps explain why the protagonist pursues the wrong things—the flaw
is more typically an urge or desire rather than a passive trait. Hamlet’s indecisiveness does not explain
why he murders Polonius, spurns Ophelia, psychologically manipulates Gertrude, and isolates himself
from his peers. In fact, his indecisiveness is the reason he tends to avoid taking action. Read in this way,
Hamlet’s indecisiveness does not mark a tragic flaw so much as an existential condition—a condition that
today’s audiences often identify with strongly.
Hamlet also belongs to the genre of revenge tragedy in that it features a main character seeking to
avenge a wrong against himself, but Shakespeare satirizes and modifies the genre in several ways. In
traditional revenge tragedies, which Shakespeare’s audience would have been familiar with, the hero is
an active, decisive figure who doggedly pursues a clear villain. The obstacles he faces are external, and
once he sees the opportunity to take his revenge, he seizes it. Hamlet, on the other hand, struggles
mostly with himself in his pursuit of Claudius. His obstacles are his own indecision and hesitation, and he
lets several opportunities to seize revenge pass, such as when he sees Claudius praying and decides
not to kill him. Further, Hamlet only kills Claudius once his own death is assured, so any satisfaction he
gets from his nemesis’s death is extremely short-lived. In these ways Shakespeare provides the
traditional, bloody, action-filled revenge tragedy with a greater degree of psychological complexity and
plausibility.

Point of View:
More than any other play by Shakespeare, Hamlet focuses on the point of view of a single character:
Hamlet himself, which makes him sympathetic even as he commits unsympathetic acts. Hamlet has
more lines than any other character in Shakespeare, and nearly 40% of the lines in his play—the highest
proportion of lines Shakespeare ever gave to a single character. Hamlet’s speeches are also
exceptionally revealing: he discusses his thoughts and feelings about profound questions like the
meaning of life, the possibility of an afterlife, familial and sexual love, suicide, religion, and suffering.
Despite his many flaws—recklessness, cruelty, indecisiveness, misogyny—Hamlet has remained an
enduringly popular and fascinating character because Shakespeare shows us so much of his inner life
that we cannot help but sympathize with him. Hamlet reveals his mental state to the audience throughout
the play, so the audience remains close to him and understands his motivations from beginning to end.
Rather than becoming estranged from the audience as he becomes estranged from himself, like Macbeth,
Hamlet continues to question himself and his actions up until his death.

The point of view in Hamlet is so close to Hamlet himself that it’s sometimes impossible to be sure
whether something is really happening in the play or whether Hamlet just thinks it’s happening. Although
Marcellus, Barnardo, and Horatio see the Ghost, only Hamlet ever hears it speak, and when the Ghost
makes its third appearance in Gertrude’s closet, only Hamlet can see it. The discrepancy around who
hears the ghost raises the question of whether the Ghost’s speech might be a hallucination of Hamlet’s,
confirming a suspicion he already holds rather than giving him new information.
Additionally, in the play scene, Hamlet is convinced that his play has made Claudius feel guilty—“What,
frighted with false fire?” ([Link])—but other characters seem to believe that Hamlet’s own behavior has
made Claudius feel not guilty but angry: “Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended” ([Link].). The
audience can’t decide these questions either way, which contributes to the play’s air of mystery, and also
makes us feel that we are so close to Hamlet’s point of view that we are seeing the play’s events the way
he sees them. By keeping the audience so close to Hamlet’s perspective and interpretation,
Shakespeare tells his story through the point of view of an unreliable narrator.

Despite the closeness of the play’s point of view to Hamlet, and the amount of time other characters
spend questioning him and spying on him, there are many mysteries about his character which are never
solved, and these mysteries create the play’s troubling sense that truth is ultimately unknowable. The
audience never discovers how far Hamlet has really gone mad and how far he’s pretending. We never
find out what is making him so unhappy: his father’s death, his mother’s marriage, his failure to become
king, his inability to take revenge, or his inability to work out what to believe. We never learn what his real
feelings for Ophelia are; nor do we know why it takes him so long to finally kill Claudius. By bringing us
so close to the point of view of a single character while ultimately making him
mysterious, Hamlet suggests that the core of human nature is unknowable.
Tone:
Early in the play, Hamlet’s mood is dark and depressed, but when he’s given the task of avenging his
father’s ghost, his desire to find out the truth gives him a sense of urgency and purpose. As the play
progresses, and he fails to find a satisfactory way to correct the problem, he becomes increasingly
frustrated, lashing out more impulsively, ruthlessly, and recklessly, until the final catastrophe. Thus we
could say that the tone of the play, meaning the author’s attitude toward the events, seems like its going
to be optimistic in the beginning of the play (when it seems like justice could be achieved), but bleaker as
the play moves on, and it seems like achieving justice or redemption in a situation like this is impossible.
Hamlet makes passionate and intelligent attempts to understand himself and his situation, only to end up
confused, disappointed or disgusted by what he encounters. The world of the play is both more terrible
and more mysterious than its characters are capable of grasping. Initially Hamlet considers himself
above the other characters, and his nimble wordplay, often at the expense of less verbally adept
characters, gives the early scenes a playful tone, even as Hamlet is grieving his father. However, once
Hamlet erroneously kills Polonius instead of Claudius, and learns that Claudius has ordered his
execution, Hamlet realizes even he is not exempt from the malevolent forces of fate. The tone turns dark
and brooding as Hamlet comes to terms with his own dark nature and resigns himself to committing more
murders, in his killing of Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and finally Laertes and Claudius.

The many secrets in Hamlet create an atmosphere of mystery and conspiracy. Claudius is tortured by
the guilty secret of his brother’s murder. Polonius sends Reynaldo to spy on his son Laertes, and spies
on Hamlet himself. The Ghost hints that Gertrude and Claudius may have been having an affair. The
songs Ophelia sings in her madness seem to reveal that her relationship with Hamlet is sexual. Hamlet
demands that Horatio, Marcellus and later Gertrude promise to keep secret that he is only pretending to
be mad. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern try to hide from Hamlet that they were summoned to Elsinore.
That we never learn the truth about most of these secrets encourages us to share in Hamlet’s frustration:
like him, we suspect that terrible things are being kept from us. As the audience, we, too, are never
certain to what degree Hamlet is acting insane as a strategy, and to what degree he has actually
succumbed to mental illness. All these secrets and misunderstandings lead to a tone of distrust and
insecurity, where the audience is constantly wondering what, if anything, to believe.

Hamlet dwells obsessively on sickness and decay, which keeps death at the forefront of the audience’s
minds and sets a tone of disgust and despair. We encounter not one but two decaying bodies: Yorick’s
skull (IV.i.) is the most famous prop in theatrical history, and after gruesomely dragging Polonius’s body
offstage, Hamlet tells Claudius that “within this month you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the
lobby” ([Link].). Several characters suggest that Hamlet is mentally ill, and he himself admits that his “wit’s
diseased” ([Link]). Even when the play’s characters are not talking about literal illness and decomposition,
they tend to fall back on imagery of sickness and decay. Marcellus declares that “something is rotten in
the state of Denmark” ([Link].). Claudius says that his murder “is rank: it smells to heaven” ([Link].) and
Gertrude sees “black and grievèd spots” on her soul ([Link].). Hamlet’s fixation on sickness and decay
creates a sense that the entire world of the play is corrupt and doomed.

For a tragedy, Hamlet has an unusual number of comic scenes and characters, and the play’s black
humor adds complexity and ambiguity to its tone. For much of the play Hamlet makes fun of Polonius,
and we are encouraged to laugh with him at the old man, but when Hamlet murders Polonius we are
horrified that Hamlet continues to make fun: “This councillor/Is now most still, most secret and most
grave, / Who was in life a foolish, prating knave” ([Link].). We are also encouraged to laugh at Hamlet in
his worst moments. When he leaps into Ophelia’s grave, Hamlet declares his love for Ophelia in terms
which we can only find silly: “Forty thousand brothers / Could not with all their quantity of love / Make up
my sum. What wilt thou do for her? […] eat a crocodile?” (V.i.). The humor here is uncomfortable,
because Hamlet’s behavior is cruelly inappropriate. This painful humor reinforces the play’s despairing
tone, but it also creates complexity, because it distances us from Hamlet’s suffering and asks us to
question how seriously we should take him.
Foreshadowing:

Few of the events of Hamlet are foreshadowed in a straightforward way, which is striking because in
Shakespeare’s tragedies, and especially in the tragedies which have a supernatural element (like the
Ghost in Hamlet), the play’s climactic events are usually foreshadowed or even prophesied. The absence
of foreshadowing helps create the sense that in Hamlet certainty is hard to come by, and it also raises
the dramatic tension. Hamlet spends much of the play trying to decide whether or not to kill either himself
or Claudius: if either of these deaths were explicitly foreshadowed, Hamlet’s deliberations would be less
momentous.

Claudius’s death

Claudius’s death is partially foreshadowed by the Ghost. The Ghost is recognized by Barnardo as a
“portentous figure” (I.i.), and Horatio agrees that it “bodes some strange eruption” (I.i.), but none of the
characters who witness the Ghost in the opening scene is certain about what its appearance means.
Hamlet, by contrast, jumps to the conclusion that the Ghost’s appearance indicates “foul play” ([Link].)
before he has even seen it, which may indicate the Ghost’s accusation that Claudius murdered Hamlet’s
father is all in Hamlet’s head.

Whether or not the Ghost’s story is a hallucination of Hamlet’s, Hamlet himself doubts whether the ghost
is “an honest ghost” ([Link]). It could also be said that the Ghost does not foreshadow Claudius’s murder so
much as cause it, so the exact relationship between the Ghost’s appearance and Claudius’s death is
hard to pin down: the ghost’s appearance is part foreshadowing, part cause, and part red herring.
In Hamlet, even messages from beyond the grave are hard to interpret and harder still to trust.

Hamlet’s madness
Horatio warns Hamlet that the Ghost “might deprive your sovereignty of reason/And draw you into
madness” ([Link].). The Ghost itself instructs Hamlet: “Taint not thy mind” (I.v.). These warnings foreshadow
Hamlet’s descent into madness. However, as always in Hamlet, we see a further layer of complexity to
the question of Hamlet’s madness. After his encounter with the Ghost, Hamlet tells Horatio that he may
“put an antic disposition on” (I.v.), that is, pretend to be mad. The play, therefore, sets up two different
ways to understand Hamlet’s increasingly erratic behavior: as the real madness predicted by the Ghost
and Horatio, or as the “antic disposition” mentioned by Hamlet. This uncertainty makes Hamlet’s
character ultimately mysterious.

Polonius’s death

Hamlet’s murder of Polonius is foreshadowed when Polonius tells the assembled court that he acted at
university: “I did enact Julius Caesar. I was killed i’ th’ Capitol. Brutus killed me” ([Link].).
Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar was written at the same time as Hamlet, and very likely the actors who
played Polonius and Hamlet in Hamlet would have played Caesar and Brutus in Julius Caesar.
Contemporary audiences would have recognized the actors, and they may have taken this line as a hint
that Polonius faces the same end as Caesar.
Even if audiences aren’t familiar with the actors or the plot of Julius Caesar, Polonius’s line introduces
the idea of the character being killed by a confidant. The foreshadowing of Polonius’s murder raises the
tension in the scene which follows: Hamlet behaves more erratically than ever, and we realize that his
behavior may, for the first time in the play, have real consequences.

============= QUESTIONS and ANSWERS ==============

Questions & Answers

Is the Ghost real?

The Ghost is one of the great mysteries of Hamlet. The play begins by showing us the Ghost appearing
in front of several witnesses, who see it and discuss it among themselves, so we know from the outset
that the Ghost is not simply a figment of Hamlet’s imagination. We also learn later in the play that the
Ghost is telling the truth about being murdered by Claudius, because Claudius admits to the murder
when he’s talking alone in Act 3, scene 3. However, the basic nature and intention of the Ghost remain
mysterious. The Ghost claims that it is the spirit of Hamlet’s father, and that it currently spends most of its
time in purgatory being purified before it can enter heaven, and that it has been released for a short time
to deliver its message to Hamlet. This explanation doesn’t make a lot of sense, because the Ghost is a
very dark and frightening creature, and it urges Hamlet toward vengeance, sending him down a path that
leads to murder and his own destruction. Vengeance is not a heavenly virtue or Christian value, and
heavenly beings don’t normally appear to tempt characters toward violent and tragic paths. (The Ghost is
in purgatory not heaven, but presumably only a heavenly being would have the authority to release it.
The Ghost may be unique in literature in claiming to be returning specifically from purgatory.)
Hamlet himself raises the possibility that the Ghost is actually a demon impersonating his father, which
certainly seems possible, though we never see any further evidence to support this idea. In Act 3, scene
4, when the Ghost appears to Hamlet (and the audience) but not to Gertrude, Gertrude sees the Ghost
as a sign of Hamlet’s madness. Because we’ve already seen that the Ghost can appear to other people
and that it was right about Claudius, on a first viewing we would probably conclude that the Ghost simply
chose to appear only to Hamlet and that Gertrude is mistaken about his being mad (even more so since
Hamlet announced his intention to appear mad). However, in the context of Hamlet’s increasingly
distraught emotional state, the Ghost’s appearance only to Hamlet seems more ambiguous. It may be a
demon trying to make Hamlet insane, or a manifestation of Hamlet’s inner demons.

Did Hamlet and Ophelia have sex?

It would have been risky for Shakespeare directly to portray pre-marital sex between aristocratic
characters, but Hamlet gives us reasons to suspect that at some point before the beginning of the play,
Hamlet and Ophelia have had sex. Laertes and Polonius both warn Ophelia against having sex with
Hamlet, which suggests that Ophelia’s father and brother, at least, are concerned about the possibility.
Later in the play Hamlet also teases Ophelia with explicitly sexual puns, further suggesting that they may
have shared intimacy. For instance, just before the play scene, he asks: “Shall I lie in your lap, my lady?"
. . . Do you think I meant country matters?” ([Link].).
However, the best evidence that Hamlet and Ophelia have had sex comes from Ophelia. When Hamlet
kills Ophelia’s father, she goes mad. In her madness, she sings songs that seem to dwell on the causes
of her grief. Some of her songs are about old men or fathers dying. The rest are about pre-marital sex:
“Quoth she, ‘Before you tumbled me / You promised me to wed’” (IV.v.). Although none of this evidence
offers definitive proof, Shakespeare strongly suggests that Hamlet and Ophelia have at least considered
consummating their desire.

Did Gertrude have an affair with Claudius before he killed Hamlet’s father?

We can’t know for sure if Gertrude was sleeping with Claudius while still married to Hamlet’s father,
though Hamlet and the Ghost imply that she was. Both Hamlet and the Ghost call Claudius “adulterate,”
which means “corrupted by adultery.” The Ghost also calls Gertrude “seeming-virtuous” ([Link].), which
suggests he believes he was wrong to trust her when he was alive. However, when Claudius confesses
to the murder of his brother, he counts Gertrude among the “effects for which I did the murder” ([Link].),
suggesting he did not “possess” her before his brother’s death—although in this context “possess” might
refer to marriage rather than to sexual intimacy. Furthermore, when Hamlet accuses Gertrude of “an act /
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty” ([Link].), Gertrude at first seems to have no idea what he’s
talking about: “what act / That roars so loud[?]” ([Link].). Later, however, she confesses that Hamlet’s
words have made her see “black and grieved spots” ([Link].) on her soul, which indicates that she feels
guilty about something, although she doesn’t specify the source of her guilt. Once again, Shakespeare
leaves the matter of sex ambiguous.

Who is Fortinbras?

Fortinbras is the nephew of the King of Norway. Although we hear his name mentioned in the play’s first
and second acts, Fortinbras doesn’t appear onstage until the final moments of the play. Early on we
learn that Fortinbras’s father, the previous King of Norway, was killed by King Hamlet in battle some
years before the events of the play. But instead of inheriting the throne, the kingdom went to Fortinbras’s
uncle.

Thus, Fortinbras and Hamlet are in similar situations—that is, both are sons of murdered kings, whose
thrones have been usurped by their uncles. However, Fortinbras’s response to his situation is very
different from Hamlet’s. In order to avenge his father’s death, Fortinbras invades Denmark and ends up
taking the Danish crown for himself, thereby living up to his name, which means “strong-armed.”
Fortinbras demonstrates how the son of a murdered king is supposed to behave. Whereas Hamlet finds
his situation unbearable and resorts to ineffectual and melancholy contemplation, Fortinbras is a man of
action who effectively takes advantage of his situation. In this regard Fortinbras resembles Laertes,
another worthy son who takes action on his murdered father’s behalf.

Why doesn’t Hamlet kill Claudius right away?

Hamlet’s delay in killing Claudius represents another of Hamlet’s great mysteries. Hamlet himself offers
several reasons throughout the play. At first, he doesn’t want to kill Claudius because he doesn’t feel as
angry or determined to act as he thinks he should, referring to himself as “unpregnant of my cause” ([Link]).
Later Hamlet wonders whether he can trust the Ghost: “The spirit that I have seen / May be a devil”
(III.i.). If the Ghost is a devil rather than the spirit of his father, then the possibility exists that the Ghost
aims to manipulate him into committing a sin. Hence he wonders whether the Ghost “abuses me to damn
me” (III.i.). In another moment of hesitation in Act Three, Hamlet aborts the killing of Claudius because
the man’s praying, and Hamlet worries that his uncle will go to Heaven if he dies while praying. Finally, at
the end of the play, Hamlet remains unable to decide whether killing Claudius is morally justifiable,
asking himself: “Is ’t not perfect conscience?” ([Link].). Hamlet consistently reasons his way out of
committing violence, suggesting that he is conditioned to be a thinker rather than a man of action.

Why does Marcellus say, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” (1.4.94)?

Marcellus is speaking figuratively. He means that something—as yet unknown—is wrong in the country.
He believes this to be true because the ghost of Hamlet’s father, armed from head to foot, has appeared
several times around midnight, and the ghost has now summoned Hamlet to come with it alone to speak
privately.

Was Hamlet really in love with Ophelia?

It is likely that Hamlet really was in love with Ophelia. Readers know Hamlet wrote love letters to Ophelia
because she shows them to Polonius. In addition, Hamlet tells Ophelia, “I did love you once” (3.1.117).
He professes his love for Ophelia again to Laertes, Gertrude, and Claudius after Ophelia has died,
saying, “I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers / Could not with all their quantity of love / Make up my
sum” (5.1.247–249).

Why does Hamlet encourage the actor to recite the speech about Pyrrhus and Priam?
Hamlet wants everyone to hear the speech about Pyrrhus and Priam because it involves a son viciously
avenging his father’s death. The tale parallels what Hamlet would like to do himself and feels
he should do—kill Claudius for murdering his father. Hamlet dwells on this idea throughout the play,
though he keeps hesitating and can’t bring himself to commit the act until the end.

Does Hamlet consider suicide?

When Hamlet asks “To be or not to be?”, he is asking himself whether it is better to be alive—and suffer
what life offers—or to be dead by one’s own hand and end the suffering. His father’s murder and his
mother’s marriage to his villainous uncle have caused Hamlet to contemplate the merits of suicide.
Throughout the rest of his soliloquy, he wonders why people choose life’s suffering over death and
concludes that it is their fear of the unknown—of not knowing what death will bring.

Why is Hamlet so cruel to Ophelia?

Hamlet is cruel to Ophelia because he has transferred his anger at Gertrude’s marriage to Claudius onto
Ophelia. In fact, Hamlet’s words suggest that he transfers his rage and disgust for his mother onto all
women. He says to Ophelia, “God has given you one face and you make yourselves another. You jig and
amble, and you lisp, you nickname God’s creatures and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to,
I’ll no more on ’t” (3.1.143–146). Hamlet may also know that Ophelia is helping Claudius and Polonius
spy on him and talks to her with this betrayal in mind.

Why does Laertes break into Claudius’s chamber?

Laertes breaks into Claudius’s chamber because he is angry that his father is dead and demands to
know how he was killed, where his body is, and why Polonius was not afforded the burial ceremony he
deserved. In fact, Laertes seems to think that Claudius himself is responsible for his father’s murder.
Laertes is shown to be a hot-headed, vengeful young man, which helps explain why he later conspires
with Claudius to kill Hamlet.

Why does Ophelia go mad?

Ophelia goes mad because her father, Polonius, whom she deeply loved, has been killed by Hamlet. In
addition, Hamlet, whom she also loved, has cruelly rejected her. The fact that this grief drives Ophelia to
madness reveals her overwhelming feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness, and the power that the
men in Ophelia’s life wield over her.

Does Ophelia actually kill herself?

One may view Ophelia’s death as an accident because she drowns after the tree branch she is sitting on
breaks, causing her to fall into the brook. However, one may also view her death as a suicide because
she makes no attempt to save herself. This lack of effort can be interpreted as her desire to die or the
inability to recognize the mortal danger she is in. Committing suicide was considered a mortal sin in
Shakespeare’s day; he leaves the answer uncertain.

What is the significance of the gravediggers?

The graveyard is a setting of death, which foreshadows events to come. At first the gravediggers add to
the somber atmosphere, arguing over whether Ophelia deserves a Christian burial since her death may
have been a suicide. But then their behavior becomes inane as they tell bad jokes about death and
grave-digging, sing irreverent songs, and act like buffoons. The scene creates some comic relief before
the tragic end of the play.

How does Hamlet’s view of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern change?

In the beginning of the play, Hamlet greets Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as old friends. But on the ship
journey to England, he discovers that they are working with Claudius and that they carry a request from
Claudius for the king of England to behead Hamlet. Hamlet replaces the request with his own order,
asking that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern be executed. He has his “old friends” murdered because he
believes they deserve to die for betraying him: “Their defeat / Does by their own insinuation grow.”
(5.2.62–63)