Hamlet By Shakespeare

Hamlet takes place in Denmark. Hamlets father, the king, was just killed. His brother, Claudius has taken the throne and married Hamlet's mother. The first scene of this play sets a tome of distrust, suspense, and darkness. Late at night, some watchmen see a ghost that they believe is the ghost of the king. They bring Hamlet to see the ghost and what it wants. The ghost talks to him, saying that Claudius is the one that killed him and that Hamlet must seek revenge against him. Hamlet contemplates how he will go about doing this, but because he is super deep and thoughtful, he is driven mad. The characters around him see this and worry about him. The King and Queen (Polonius and Gertrude) decide that they are going to have Hamlet's friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern firgure out what is going on. Polonius is a Lord, and the father of Ophelia. He claims that Hamlet is in love with Ophelia. They spy on their conversation, and Hamlet only seems mad, but doesn't show any love for her. he repeatedly says "Get thee to a nunnery!" possibly meaning that she and him had some past relations and her reputation is damaged, and she will never be wed. She may even be pregnant. Later on Hamlet finds his Uncle/King praying, and thinks about killing him then and there. He stops and doesn't do it at this time however, because he wants to do it at a time heis doing something bad, so that he cannot go to heaven. Claudius is fearful of Hamlet and his intentions now, so he orders him to go to England. When Hamlet meets with his mother in her chamber, he hears someone hiding. Thinking it is the king, he stabs him before he can see who it is. It is Polonius, Ophelia's father. After this, Hamlet is told to go to England with his friends, and be sentenced to death there. When Ophelia finds out about her father's death, this puts her over the edge, and she drowns herself. Drowning is something that was common at that time period for women to do is their reputations were ruined because they were impregnated, so we can also assume that she was pregnant with Hamlet's child. When Laertes, Ophelia's brother, finds out that both his sister and father are dead, he comes into the play. Claudius, who wants Hamlet dead, tells Laertes that Hamlet is the one to blame for the deaths. When they find out that Hamlet is on his way back, they plan a fight between Laertes and Hamlet. Claudius and Laertes plan to have a sword laced with poison, so the slightest cut would kill him. They also has a cup of poisoned wine as a back up if the sword didn't work. When Hamlet gets back and the fight begins, Hamlet gets the first hit, and is invited to drink the wine. He says no and instead the queen drinks it and dies. I believe that this was on purpose, to save her son. Laertes does cut Hamlet with the poisoned sword, but also himself, so he dies. Hamlet stabs Claudius and makes him drink the wine, and he dies as well. At the very end, Hamlet dies. Hamlet tells Horatio to carry on his story and what has happened to him since he is one of the only ones left that Hamlet trusts. Fortinbras also takes over the kingdom when all other possible people are dead.

One famous quote from this play is "To be or not to be, that is the question." This is Hamlet contemplating death towards the beginning of the play. This starts out one of Hamlet's extremely long speeches.

Hamlet is the main character in this play. He is the Prince of Norway. When his father died, he was upset by the fact that his uncle quickly stepped in and also married his mother. This bothered him a lot, and only added to his hatred of Claudius once he finds out that he is the one that killed his father. Hamlet is somewhat mad in this story, but also has quite a bit of intelligence. He studied at the University of Wittenberg. Throughout this play, one can see that Hamlet is indecisive about when to kill his uncle, but also rash in certain situations, like the conversation between him and Ophelia.

Claudius is the new king of Denmark, once he kills his brother. One of the guards can see that something bad is going on right at the beginning. He says, "something is rotten in the state of denmark..." They can see that Claudius becoming the new leader is no accident and that something bad is about to happen involving him. Without Claudius, there would be no story, or no reason for Hamlet to become mad.

Ophelia is the daughter of Polonius, who was killed by Hamlet. She and Hamlet had some past relations, but now Hamlet only gets angry with her, telling her to go to a nunnery. She may have been impregnated by Hamlet early on, and that is why she feels so upset about Hamlet's anger with her. She ends up going crazy, singing songs and handing out flowers that have different meaning before she drowns herself.

Laertes is Ophelia's brother, and a foil of Hamlet. Hamlet is rather indecisive and waits to kill and get revenge. Laertes is the opposite, wanting to get revenge as soon as e possibly can. He can not wait to kill and get revenge for his families deaths, when Hamlet is the opposite.

The Narrative voice in this play is told from the voices of all of the characters themselves. They together make up the Narrative voice, so at times they will be very subjective, and other times objective. Most of the time I see the characters showing subjective narrating. They are constantly showing their emotions and describing things in ways that support their own opinions and thoughts on a specific event or character. Hamlet and Laertes both show much anger in their speech after they find out about their families killings, and Ophelia is always crying or upset about Hamlet.

THEME: It is impossible to be 100% certain you are right in life changing decisions.
This is shown by Hamlet and his indecisiveness. He questions himself too much and thinks about things too much, that he does not figure out a way to kill Claudius until the end of the play, and he did not even come up with the idea himself. Claudius's plan almost backfired on him causing him to be killed. The uncertainty of Hamlet in this play shows the reader that it is in general hard to be certain about any life changing decisions.