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Act 1

Scene 1: On the guards' platform at Elsinore, Horatio waits with Barnardo and Marcellus to question a ghost that has twice appeared. The Ghost, in the form of the late King Hamlet of Denmark, appears but will not speak. Horatio decides to tell his fellow student, Prince Hamlet, about the Ghost's appearance.

 

Scene 2: In an audience chamber in Elsinore, Claudius, the new king of Denmark, holds court. After thanking his courtiers for their recent support, he dispatches ambassadors to Norway to halt a threatened attack from Fortinbras. He gives Laertes permission to return to France but denies Hamlet’s request to return to the university in Wittenberg. Hamlet, mourning for his father’s death, is left alone to vent his despair at what he regards as his mother’s all too hasty marriage to his uncle, Claudius. The audience learns that the marriage too place “within a month” of the former king’s death. Horatio, Barnardo, and Marcellus arrive and tell Hamlet about the Ghost. Hamlet makes plans to join them that night. 

 

Scene 3: In Polonius’s chambers Laertes says good-bye to his sister, Ophelia, and tells her not to trust Hamlet’s promises of love. Polonius joins them, sends Laertes off, then echoes Laertes’s warning to Ophelia, finally ordering her not to see Hamlet again.

 

Questions

       1. Analyse Claudius’s argument against Hamlet’s “prolonged” mourning (1.2.90-121)? Where is the logical instead of emotional? Where is he emotional? How does he try to calm Hamlet? Where is he insulting?

“Why should we in our peevish opposition

 Take it to heart?” – insulting

“To do obsequious sorrow: but to persever” – calming

“You are the most immediate to our throne; And with no less nobility of love.” – calming but the shift in tone immediately changed

“This unprevailing woe, and think of us. As of a father: for let the world take note,” – emotional

- Claudius “the throne will be yours” because he wanted the throne, but the underlying text is stating that Hamlet isn’t ready to be king.

 

        2. Read Hamlet’s first soliloquy (1.2.135-154) carefully. What is it that is really bothering him about what has happened since his father’s death? How would you describe the tone of his feelings detached, impassioned, rational, ironic, or what?

“Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,

She married. O, most wicked speed, to post

With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

It is not nor it cannot come to good:

But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.” – demonstrates how he is really hurt that his mother married her uncle in less than a month

When he states that he must hold his tongue it shows his detachment and relationship issues with his father

He doesn’t want to bring a struggle on the family. He doesn’t more attention to it.

Parallels with the situation with Norway

Comparing Claudius to a satyr (trickery) and his father to Apollo

Believes his mother is passive and frail

He compares her to Niobe because her mourning was so dramatic and then it just stopped so abruptly to demonstrate that she may not have been actually saddened by her husband’s death.

 

          3. What do Hamlet’s last lines 91.2.277-281) foreshadow?

“My father's spirit in arms! all is not well;

I doubt some foul play: would the night were come!

Till then sit still, my soul: foul deeds will rise,

Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.” – Hamelt suspects that someone murdered his father.

Foul play

 

           4. What does Laertes warn Ophelia about? What, apparently, has been the relationship been between Hamlet and Ophelia since his return from Wittenberg?

He warms that they won’t be sincere and that he has to put the state first. She isn’t first priority. They are getting closer to sexual relations. Maybe she’ll be ok with not being first priority. “And with a teacher may he walk.”

 

            5. Summarise Polonius’ precepts. What kind of man would he like for him to be? What kind of woman would he like Ophelia to be (1.3. 124-144)?

He wants his son to be wise and Ophelia to be proper. Wants a traditional family.

What do we know about Laertes, Polonius, and Ophelia by the end of 2.3? What sort of people are they? What sort of family are they? Who is missing from this family? How strong willed is Ophelia?

           

           6. What do we know about Laertes, Polonius, and Ophelia by the end of 2.3? What sort of people are they? What sort of family are they? Who is missing from this family? How strong willed is Ophelia?

 

 

Scene 4: While Claudius drinks away the night, Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus are visited by the Ghost. It signals to Hamlet. Hamlet’s friends try to  stop his following the Ghost, but Hamlet will not be held back.

 

Scene 5: The Ghost tells Hamlet a tale of horror. Saying that he is the spirit of Hamlet's father, he demands that Hamlet avenge King Hamlet's murder at the hands of Claudius. Hamlet, horrified, vows to "remember" and swears his friends to secrecy about what they have seen.

 

Questions

  1. How does Shakespeare use setting and characterisation to establish that “something is rotten in the state of Denmark?” 

  2. How is the idea of deception or a hidden agenda shown in these scene

  3. Polonius to Laertes (I.3.64-87)

    Some of the advice is very general and trying to help

    But it can also be interpreted that if he exposed in a bad light then Laertes’s actions could be connected back to Polonius

    Polonius wants Laertes to keep to himself so he won’t be vulnerable

    But generally, very general and not too overprotective.

    Conversation between Polonius and Ophelia (I.3.98-145)

    Polonius is more worried about Ophelia’s actions than Laertes.

    Polonius is more aggressive with Ophelia when expressing his opinions.

    Very commanding

  4. Hamlet’s soliloquy (I.5.99-119)

  5. Hamlet’s plans (I.5.185-212)    

  6. Conversation between Polonius and Reynaldo (start of Act II)

  7. Hamlet to Ophelia (II.1.87-112)

    Ophelia isn’t able to express 

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