Hamlet, Act 5

In the churchyard, two gravediggers shovel out a grave for Ophelia and they argue whether… Ophelia should be buried in the churchyard, since her death looks like a suicide.
The gravedigger, who does not recognize Hamlet as the prince, tells him that he has been a gravedigger since.. King Hamlet defeated the elder Fortinbras in battle, the very day on which young Prince Hamlet was born.
Hamlet picks up a skull, and the gravedigger tells him that the skull belonged to.. Yorick, King Hamlet’s jester.
Hamlet, wondering who has died, notices that the funeral rites seem “maimed,” indicating that the dead man or woman.. took his or her own life.
Hamlet and Horatio hide as.. Claudius, Gertrude, Laertes, and many mourning courtiers enter the graveyard.
Laertes becomes infuriated with the priest because he.. says that to give Ophelia a proper Christian burial would profane the dead since she committed suicide.
Hamlet realizes Ophelia is the one being buried and he jumps out from hiding and declares.. his love for Ophelia.
Hamlet cries that he would do things for Ophelia that Laertes could not dream of— he would eat a crocodile for her, he would be buried alive with her.
The gravediggers are designated by Shakespeare as “clowns” which represent.. the clever commoner who gets the better of his social superior through wit.
Hamlets assault on Laertes in the graveyard offers a glimpse of what his.. true feelings for Ophelia might once have been.
Hamlet never expresses a sense of guilt over Ophelia’s death, which he indirectly caused through.. his murder of Polonius.
Hamlet’s obsession with the physicality of death scenes: -Torment in the afterlife—he is nearly as fascinated by the physical decomposition of the body.-His preoccupation with Yorick’s skull, when he envisions physical features such as lips and skin that have decomposed from the bone. -Hamlet previously commented to Claudius that Polonius’s body was at supper, because it was being eaten by worms-Great men and beggars both end as dust. He imagines dust from the decomposed corpse of Julius Caesar being used to patch a wall.
Hamlet tells Horatio how he plotted to overcome Claudius’s scheme to have him murdered in England: He replaced the sealed letter carried by the unsuspecting Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, which called for Hamlet’s execution, with one calling for the execution of the bearers of the letter—Rosencrantz and Guildenstern themselves.
In Laertes’ desire to avenge his father’s death, Hamlet says he sees.. the mirror image of his own desire, and he promises to seek Laertes’ good favor.
Osric: a foolish courtier who tries to flatter Hamlet by agreeing with everything Hamlet says.
Osric has come to tell Hamlet that Claudius.. wants Hamlet to fence with Laertes and that the king has made a wager with Laertes that Hamlet will win.
Hamlet asks Laertes for forgiveness before the fight, claiming that it was.. his madness, and not his own will, that murdered Polonius.
Laertes reaction to Hamlet’s apology: Laertes says that he will not forgive Hamlet until an elder has advised him in the matter. But, in the meantime, he says, he will accept Hamlet’s offer of love.
Claudius says that if Hamlet wins the first or second hit, he will.. drink to Hamlet’s health, then throw into the cup a valuable gem (actually the poison) and give the wine to Hamlet.
Hamlet strikes Laertes again but declines to drink from the poisoned cup so instead.. his mother drinks from the cup.
The king tells the queen not to drink, but.. she does so anyway and is too late.
Laertes wounds Hamlet with the poisoned sword and Hamlet also.. wounds Laertes with Laertes’ own blade.
Laertes, poisoned by his own sword, declares.. “I am justly kill’d with my own treachery”.
The queen moans that the cup.. must have been poisoned, calls out to Hamlet, and then dies.
Laertes tells Hamlet that he, too, has been slain, by his own poisoned sword, and that the king.. is to blame both for the poison on the sword and for the poison in the cup.
Hamlet kills Claudius by: runs him through with the poisoned sword and forces him to drink down the rest of the poisoned wine.
During the fencing battle, Fortinbras has.. come in conquest from Poland and now fires a volley to the English ambassadors.
Hamlet tells Horatio that he is dying and urges his friend not to commit suicide, but instead to.. stay alive to tell his story and that he wishes Fortinbras to be made King of Denmark.
Fortinbras marches into the room accompanied by the English ambassadors, who announce.. that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.
July 14, 2019