| Where does Hamlet tell Claudius that Polonius is? | At first he says “at supper” then he goes on to say that he’s near the stairs in the lobby |
| Does Hamlet show remorse for killing Polonius? How can you explain Hamlet’s reaction? | No, he kind of speaks about it jokingly |
| After telling Hamlet that he is to go to England, and after the exit of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, what does Claudius reveal when he is left alone on stage? | In the letters that he has sent to England, they say to kill Hamlet |
| Are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern aware of Claudius’s intentions? Why does Claudius feel certain that his request will be carried out? | Doesn’t seem like it,he knows people there (“thou mayst not coldly set our sovereign process which imports at full, by letters congruing to that effect”) |
| With whom does Hamlet speak in act IV scene iv? What does Hamlet learn from this person? | Hamlet speaks to a captain of Fortinbras. He learns that the land they are trying to get ( a part of Poland) is not worth anything, and they are trying to defeat it just for the glory |
| How does Hamlet respond to the news about fortinbras passing? | He is very frustrated with himself and begins to compare himself to Fortinbras. He is frustrated because Fortinbras doesn’t have any reason to start a war or kill people, but he still does it for the glory, and Hamlet feels like he is weak because he has a reason, his fathers death, and hasn’t taken action yet. |
| In what condition is Ophelia when she comes before Gertrude and Claudius? What are the two subjects of Ophelia’s songs? | Ophelia keeps babbling, she may be depressed, shes not in a good condition, she is starting to go crazy. The 2 subjects are Polonius and Hamlet. |
| What might be the causes of Ophelia’s madness? | She has basically lost Hamlet, and now Hamlet killed her father |
| Who has returned from France, and what are the people saying to this person? | Laertes has returned from France, people are telling him that Claudius killed Polonius. |
| Why is Claudius so worried about what is being said to Laertes? | Laertes is starting a rebellion, Claudius doesn’t want to get blamed, or even worse killed |
| What does Laertes seek when he bursts into the presence of the king? | He seeks his father |
| How does Laertes’s reaction to the killing of his father differ from Hamlet’s reaction to the killing of his father? | Laertes is taking action immediately, while Hamlet still hasn’t even taken action |
| What does Claudius tell Laertes to calm him down? What does Claudius say to Laertes at the end of scene V? | Claudius says that he isn’t guilty of killing Polonius. Claudius says “And where th’ offense is, let the great ax fall.” |
| Why might Claudius want to win Laertes over? | He knows Laertes already had the power to potentially start a rebellion |
| How does Hamlet come to be back in Denmark? | He was captured by pirates |
| How does Claudius feel about Hamlet’s return to Denmark? | He’s confused, and somewhat angry. (” What should this mean? Are all the rest come back? or is it some abuse (trickery), and no such thing?” |
| What happens to Ophelia? | She has drowned |
| Whose grave are the men digging? Why are they arguing if this person should be buried or not? | Ophelia’s. Because the suspicions of her taking her own life, and that is a mortal sin in the church. |
| Who skull does Hamlet hold up? What does Hamlet tell Horatio about that person? Why is this symbolism? | Yorick, the king’s old jester. He remembers him carrying him around on his shoulders. Because everyone’s a pile of bones in the end. It shows him that death takes away everyone’s differences. |
| Why does Laertes complain to the priest? | Because they’re not singing the usual hymns for his sister as they bury her. Cheated her of her burial rights because of how she died. |
| What happens when Hamlet steps out from the place where and and Horatio have been watching the funeral? | Hamlet and Laertes brawl in the gravel. |
| Claudius reminds Laertes to remain patient and to remember what? | They’ll take care of the problem soon, it’ll be all over soon. |
| How had Hamlet discovered Claudius’s order to have Hamlet beheaded? | A packet of papers that found and decided to read. Snuck into a a document room and accidentally read the letters. |
| How did Hamlet see to it that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern would be put to death instead of himself? Did he feel guilty about that? | he rewrote the letters in his fancy handwriting and used his seal. He doesn’t feel guilty about it one bit because they were bringing him to his death. |
| What message does Osric bring to Hamlet from the King? | That Laertes wants to sword fight him as soon as possible. |
| How does Gertrude die? | She drinks the poisoned wine meant for Hamlet. |
| How is Laertes mortally wounded? What does he say before he dies? Why does he mention he was put to death by his own evil acts? | Hamlet and Latertes somehow switch swords while fighting. “Like a mouse caught in my own trap.” His idea to but the poison on the sword and it backfired on himself. |
| How does Claudius die? | Hamlet stabs him with the poisoned blade and then forces him to drink the rest of the poison. |
| How does Hamlet die? What are his dying wishes? | He was hit by Laertes’s blade before hand. “Tell everyone what happened, set the story straight.” Fortenbras to be king of the Danish throne. |
| What does Horatio say in the end about this tragedy? Why do you think Hamlet did not choose him as king? | He tells the ambassador all about all the revenge plots and what had been going on. He knows that Fortinbras is like him, just strong and more able. |
| What does Fortinbras say he will do to honor Hamlet? | To fire the soldiers’s guns in honor of him and read him his military rights. |
| “Who is he that builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter” | Grave digger |
| “Alas poor Yorick, I knew him Horatio” | Hamlet |
| “Sweets to the sweet farewell” | Gertrude |
| “They did make love to this employment; they are not near my conscience” | Hamlet |
| “if it please his majesty, ’tis the breathing time of day with me.” | Hamlet |
| “If your mind dislike anything, obey it…I will forestall their repair hither and say you are not fit” | Horatio |
| “It it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now..since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is’t to leave betimes?” | Hamlet |
| “I am more an antique Roman than a Dane” | Horatio |
| ” I do prophesy the election lightsOn Fortinbras: he has my dying voice” | Hamlet |
| “With sorrow I embrace my fortune:I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.” | Fortinbras |
| His means of death, his obscure funeral / No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o’er his bones, / No noble rite nor funeral ostentation.” | Laertes |
| That drop of blood that’s calm proclaims me bastard… | Laertes |
| Do it, England, / For like the hectic in my blood he rages, And thou must cure me… | Claudius |
| He’s loved of the distracted multitude, / Who likes not in their judgment, but in their eyes. | Claudius |
| Rightly to be great / Is not to stir without great argument, / But greatly to find quarrel in a straw… | Hamlet |
| A thought which, quartered, hath but one part / Wisdom and ever three parts coward… | Hamlet |
| My lord, I will be ruled, / The rather if you could devise it so / That I might be the organ. | Laertes |
| A man may fish with the worm that hath eat / Of a king and eat of the fish that hath fed of that / Worm. | Hamlet |
| Whips out his rapier, cries “A rat. A rat,” / And in his brainish apprehension kills / The unseen good old man. | Gertrude |
| How much I had to do to calm his rage! / Now I fear this will give it start again. | Claudius |
| There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance. / Pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies, / That’s for thoughts. | Ophelia |
| “Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off” | Gertrude |
| “Not so my Lord, I am too much in the sun” | Hamlet |
| “Tis unmanly grief. It shows a will most incorrect to heaven.” | Claudius |
| “Frailty, thy name is woman.” | Hamlet |
| “I shall the effect of this good lesson keep / As watchman to my heart. But,…/Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, / show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,…” | Ophelia |
| “Marry, I will teach you. Think yourself a baby.” | Polonius |
| “This above all: to thine own self be true.” | Polonius |
| “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” | Marcellus |
| “I do not set my life at a pin’s fee” | Hamlet |
| “Let not the royal bed of Denmark be a couch for luxury and damned incest.” | Ghost of King Hamlet |
| Your bait of falsehood take this carp of truth;…By indirection find directions out. | Polonius |
| I doubt it is no other than the main—his father’s death and our o’erhasty marriage. | Gertrude |
| Since Brevity is the soul of wit | Polonius |
| More matter with less art | Gertrude |
| I am ill at these numbers. I have not / Art to reckon my groans . . . | Hamlet |
| When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw. | Hamlet |
| Oh what a rogue and peasant slave am I. | Hamlet |
| The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king. | Hamlet |
| “Get thee to a nunnery!” | Hamlet |
| “O what a noble mind is here o’erthrown.” | Ophelia |
| “Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.” | Claudius |
| “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” | Gertrude |
| “…do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.” | Hamlet |
| “O my offense is rank, it smells to heaven;” | Claudius |
| “He took my father, grossly full of bread, with all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;” | Hamlet |
| “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below/ Words without thoughts never to heaven go.” | Claudius |
| “As bad, good mother / As kill a king and marry with his brother.” | Hamlet |
| “Thou has’t turn’st my eyes into my very soul, / And there see I such black and grained spots…” | Gertrude |
| What have Barnardo and Marcellus seen twice before during their watch? | an apparition (ghost) |
| Why does Marcellus ask Horatio to join in the watch? | to prove to Horatio that the ghost really appeared |
| What has young Fortinbras of Norway recently done? | He is building up an army to take away the lands that King Hamlet rightfully conquered (under a contract) during King Fortinbras reign |
| Why are the people of Denmark preparing for war? | to prepare for war against young Fortinbras |
| What possible explanation comes to Barnardo for the appearance of the ghost at this time? | The “portentous” (vocab word) figure appeared in arms because there is a threat of war |
| Who has recently died? What has this person’s widow done? | King Hamlet has recently died. The widow, Gertrude, married King Hamlet’s brother, Claudius. |
| How does Hamlet feel about the event of claudius’ marriage w/ gertrude and his fathers death? How do you know? | He does not like it at all. Hamlet says to Claudius “A little more than kin, and less than kind” (The use of the word “kind” here is ambiguous. It means both affectionate, and natural. Hamlet is saying that Claudius not only has been unkind to him, but is also saying that Claudius is not of the same “kind” as Hamlet is. Hamlet views the marriage of Claudius to Queen Gertrude as unnatural.) |
| What requests do Claudius and Gertrude make of Hamlet? | They want Hamlet to stop grieving over his dead father. Gertrude goes to say that everyone must die, and Claudius says that what Hamlet is doing is obstinate and unmanly. They also do not want Hamlet to go to school in Wittenberg. |
| Does Hamlet intend to honor the request of Claudius and Gertrude? | He does not intend to get over his father. But he does obey there request to not go to school in Wittenberg. |
| What advice does Laertes give to Ophelia before departing for France? | Do not take Hamlet seriously because his affection will fade |
| Why does Polonius detain his son shortly after chiding him for not being aboard the ship already? | He wants to give Laertes advice, the most important being “be true to yourself” |
| What does Polonius tell his daughter that she must do, and why? | He tells her to not talk to Hamlet at all because he believes Hamlet is deceiving. |
| What does the ghost reveal to Hamlet, what does it ask Hamlet to do? | The ghost reveals that Claudius killed King Hamlet by pouring poison into his ear, it asks Hamlet to avenge his father by murdering Claudius, but do nothing to Gertrude |
| Why does Hamlet decide to put on an “antic disposition” or pretend to be insane? | So that no one could really tell why Hamlet was doing the things he was about to do. |
| What does Polonius ask of Reynaldo? | To find out information about LaertesTo talk badly about LaertesTo give Laertes money |
| What does Ophelia tell her father? | Hamlet is acting strangely |
| What does Claudius ask of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? | To spy on Hamlet |
| What information does Voltemand reveal? | Fortinbras will not wage war on Denmark, but pass through to battle the Poles |
| What information does Polonius tell Claudius and Gertrude? | The reason for Hamlet’s madness is because he is in love with Ophelia |
| What does Hamlet call Polonius in scene 2? | Fishmonger (fish seller)Crusty-eyed old manUnintelligent |
| When Polonius says that he will “take his leave” of Hamlet, Hamlet says that he could not take anything he would “more willingly/ part withal” except: | His own life |
| What question is Hamlet considering when he first appears in act 2? What, according to Hamlet, is “a consummation/ devoutly to be wish’d? | Is it worth it to live? (“to be or not to be, that is the question.” he wishes for a peaceful sleep |
| What, according to Hamlet, keeps a person from escaping the troubles of this life? What, according to Hamlet, does thinking too much–“the pale cast of thought”– do to people? | There is a fear of something dreadful happening after death. Thought keeps people from taking action |
| What question does Hamlet pose to Ophelia, and what does he tell her that she should do? | “Are you honest?” (Are you a virgin?) He tells her to go to a nunnery so that she won’t “breed” sinners |
| How does Hamlet regard women, love, romance, and marriage? Why might he feel this way? | He thinks that it shouldn’t exist. He could feel this way because of his mother and Claudius getting married. |
| What does Claudius conclude about Hamlet after overhearing the conversation with Ophelia? | He concludes that Hamlet isn’t crazy, his sadness, not love, is making something else. |
| Why does Claudius decide to send Hamlet to England? | He believes that Hamlet is dangerous |
| What, according to Hamlet, is “the purpose of playing,” or acting? | to represent reality |
| What is Hamlet hoping will happen when the king sees the play? | He is hoping that the King will get nervous or uneasy, meaning that he really did murder King Hamlet |
| What does Hamlet ask Horatio to do during the play? | He asks Horatio to watch Claudius to see his guilt |
| What kinds of comments does Hamlet make to Ophelia during the play within a play? | He calls her attractive, asks if he can lay in her lap, says that there is hope that people might remember a great man for 6 months, says the prologue is as brief as a woman’s love, accuses Ophelia of making a puppet show of love |
| What is the actual name of the play within the play? What other name does Hamlet give it? | The actual name of the play is “The mouse-trap” (I think the other part of this question is referring to the “Murder of Gonzago” but I don’t know for sure) |
| Why does Hamlet give the play this name? What does the play reveal to be true? | Hamlet is trying to “trap” the king, it reveals that the king is truly guilty |
| What instrument does Hamlet command Guildenstern to play? | He commands Guildenstern to play the recorder (or sometimes he calls it the “pipe”) |
| Why does Hamlet demand that Guildenstern play the instrument? What point does Hamlet want to make to Guildenstern? | He wants Guildenstern to make a fool of himself, just as Guildenstern tried to make a fool out of Hamlet. Hamlet says “Do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe?” |
| What does Hamlet caution himself against doing before going to his mother’s chamber? | he cautions himself against hurting his mother |
| What is Hamlet’s mood just before going to his mother’s chamber? | He’s kind of pumped up now that he knows the truth about Claudius, he is ready to be cruel |
| What is Claudius attempting to do when Hamlet discovers him, alone and unguarded? Why doesn’t Hamlet kill Claudius at this point? | Claudius is attempting to pray. Hamlet doesn’t kill him then, because he believes that if he killed him during prayer, he would go to heaven, and he doesn’t want that |
| Condidering Claudius’s final lines in act III scene iii, what is ironic about Hamlet’s decision not to kill Claudius at this point? | (“My words fly up, my thoughts remain below”) Although Claudius was praying and trying to repent, Claudius still thinks it was worth it to do what he did, and did not repent. He only feels a little bit of guilt. |
| Where does Polonius hide? Why does he do this? What happens to him? | Polonius hides behind the curtain, he wants to listen in on Gertrude and Hamlet’s discussion, he gets killed by Hamlet after Polonius thought that Gertrude was going to get hurt and he called for help, Hamlet thought it was Claudius behind the curtain |
| Of what does Hamlet accuse his mother? What two people does he ask her to compare? How does his mother react to her son’s comments? | He accuses her of doing something very sinful (the book isn’t very specific on this), he asks her to compare King Hamlet to Claudius, Gertrude is horrified (“These words like daggers enter my ears”) |
| Why does Gertrude feel as she does? What troubles her about her own actions? | She feels uncomfortable, she is wondering if she should not have gotten married so quickly |
| Who appears to Hamlet while the prince is speaking with his mother? What reason does this figure give for appearing at this time? | The ghost appears to remind Hamlet to not hurt Gertrude and to only speak to her |
| What conclusion does Gertrude draw from her son’s conversation with this figure? At the end of the scene, do you think that Gertrude still believes this conclusion to be true? | She thinks that Hamlet is crazy and that the ghost was a creation of Hamlet’s mind. Hamlet tells Gertrude that his madness is only fake, but I’m not sure if she believes him or not |
| What does Hamlet say will be the consequence of his action in his mother’s room? | He says that things have to get worse before they get better. Hamlet also says that he was supposed to kill Polonius (” heaven hath pleas’d it so…”) |
| How does Hamlet intend to deal with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, given what he says at the end of the act? | He changed something with the letters, and says that his “school fellows” will sweep the way for him |
Hamlet Total Review
September 10, 2019