Old Hamlet’s ghost appears for the second time to remind Hamlet of his mission of revenge for his father’s murder. Hamlet suggests to his mother he is not actually mad at all, he is just pretending to be. Shakespheare shows us many conflicts with characters throughout this scene and also the consequences which the scene puts out, including Ophelia’s madness due to her fathers death. The ‘closet scene’, as it is commonly referred to, is significant in a number of ways. On one level it helps develop the reader’s understanding of some of the play’s key themes.
Hamlet – a 'noble' man? ACT 1 • GOOD Inspires devotion in his friends and subjects – Horatio & Marcellus follow Hamlet & are determined to protect him. BAD “I have that within which passes show, these but the trappings & the suits of woe” • Loyalty to his father's memory • Disgust at his mother & uncle's immorality “a beast that wants discourse of reason would have mourned longer” /// “oh most wicked speed, to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets” • Remains respectful to Gertrude “I shall in all my best obey you madam” /// “It is not nor it cannot come to good, but break my heart for I must hold my tongue” [1st soliloquy – scene 2] • Certain that evil does not go unpunished on this earth “Foul deeds will rise, though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes” “My lord he hath importuned me with love in honourable fashion” [Ophelia to Polonius] • Love for Ophelia is pure “It is a custom more honoured in the breach than the observance” • Disapproves of excessive drinking • Brave: willing to risk God's wrath to speak to his father one more time “I'll speak to it though hell itself should gape and bid me hold my peace” Is this evidence that Hamlet is good? Already we see that it is possible to corrupt Hamlet – he will risk doing the 'wrong' thing if it means easing his grief & psychological suffering. His actions in speaking to the ghost show extreme bravery (it could be the devil in disguise) but also a disregard for his own safety because he is already experiencing suicidal despair “I do not set my life at a pin's fee” and does not care if he lives or dies.
Here Hamlet enters with a dilemma: “To be or not to be”. Hamlet outlines a long list of the miseries, and asks who would choose to bear those miseries if he could choose to die. Hamlet goes on to describe miseries, specifically his disgust at his mother’s marriage. He thinks for a while that death may end all the troubles of life. But then he is unsure o the consequences of death.
Almost from his opening lines, Hamlet is obsessed with suicide. He never does it, but he often contemplates it. How do Hamlet's reasons for avoiding suicide —and his attitude towards his own death —change throughout the play? 5. One of the more famous lines in Hamlet is, "To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man" (1.3.1).
· He tells Ophelia he loves her and does not love her, thinks she should never have trusted him but wants her to go away to a nunnery for her own protection. He calls himself a liar, but when he discovers Ophelia is dead, Hamlet's reaction suggests that he did, love her. · · I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers · Could not, with all their quantity of love, · Make up my sum. · · Hamlet does not always tell the truth, but there is enough evidence to suggest that Hamlet probably did love Ophelia. 4.
Initially a humble King of Thebes, Oedipus becomes agitated in realizing his futile attempts to avoid his tragic fate. Oedipus eagerness for discovering the truth about his origin despite the negative outcomes embodies the noble, yet tragic flaw of any good king. The Shepherd’s avoidance of the Oedipus’s questioning exhibits the Shepherd’s strong rationality during this scene. He hesitates in revealing the truth to prudently protect himself and Oedipus from repercussions of reality. The Shepherd insists that the revelation of the truth will result in destruction, “I will be destroyed even more if I do talk” (line 1184).
He almost immediately begins planning his course of action towards revenge. Hamlet’s disgust toward his mother is only heightened with this news of murder, “O most pernicious woman! / O villain, villain, smiling damned villain!” (Iv.105-106). Old Hamlet’s ghost has warned Hamlet not to punish Gertrude with hell, but he does not seem to care. Hamlet has now taken this personal with his own desires for revenge, as well as his obligation to his deceased father.
Hamlet, Text commentary: “O that this too too solid flesh would met” (1.2.129) – “But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue” (1.2.159) This extract takes place after the conversation between Hamlet, Gertrude and Claudius about Hamlet’s too long mourning. In this excerpt, which is the very first soliloquy uttered by Prince Hamlet, there is a tension between the world of the living and the one of the dead. Actually, Hamlet is deeply affected by the death of his father (the world of the dead) and the recent wedding of his mother with his uncle Claudius (the world of the living). He is torn up between sadness and disgust. His only solution to escape sadness is to leave the living to join the world of the dead but at this moment of the play, Hamlet his not able to take this decision yet.
In Hamlet's first soliloquy, he wishes that his "too too sullied flesh would melt! "(1.2.129), and that "the Everlasting had not fixed his canon ‘gainst self-slaughter" (1.2.131-132). Hamlet is distressed over his father's demise and mother's marriage, and is expecting the most exceedingly bad out of everybody. He announces "railty, thy name is woman," summing up his mother's
Within the opening pages of the play an immediate sense of disappointment arises in Hamlet due to the actions of taken by Gertrude regarding the death of his father and the immediacy of her marriage to Claudius. This dissatisfaction looms in the very first scene involving these three characters, and Hamlets soliloquy which immediately follows. In the discussion between Hamlet, Gertrude, and Claudius; the King and Queen voice their concerns over Hamlet’s well being due to his increasingly sullen attitude, which Gertrude along with Claudius misinterpret for mourning over his father’s death. The true origins of his depression however, lay in his distaste for Gertrude’s seemingly immediate recovery and remarriage after Hamlet Senior’s death. This concept is hinted to the reader through Hamlet’s response to Gertrude saying, “Though Know’st ‘tis common.