Hamlet
By
William
Shakespeare
• Shakespeare's Hamlet is full of
dead bodies, murder, suicide,
disease, graves, and talk about
death. And there is no traditional
Christian comfort or promise of
eventual justice or happiness for
the good people.
• But the message is ultimately
one of hope. You can be a hero.
Idea for theme
• Think about how Hamlet -- who
starts by wishing he were dead
-- comes to terms with life,
keeps his integrity, and strikes
back successfully at what's
wrong around him.
Some of Hamlet’s Issues…
• The issue of Gertrude's marriage to Hamlet's
uncle surfaces immediately in the first words
Hamlet speaks in the play: “A little more than
kin and less than kind” (1.2.67).
• Notice whether Claudius and Gertrude's
marriage was politically or romantically
motivated and whether Gertrude played
a part in the death of King Hamlet.
• Hamlet is the first work of literature
to look squarely at the stupidity,
falsity and sham of everyday life,
without laughing and without easy
answers. In a world where things are not as
they seem, Hamlet's genuineness,
thoughtfulness, and sincerity make him
special.
• Hamlet is no saint. But unlike most of the
other characters (and most people today),
Hamlet chooses not to compromise with
evil.
Theme idea
• Unlike so much of popular culture
today, Hamlet leaves us with the
message that life is indeed worth
living, even by imperfect people
in an imperfect world.
Written around 1601
Published in 1603
Setting: Denmark
• Shakespeare's Hamlet was a remake
of an already popular play, based in
turn on historical fiction, based in
turn on an episode from the Dark
Ages: the lawless, might-makes-
right 7th century era.
• In Hamlet, Shakespeare holds up a mirror to nature,
showing us ourselves.
• If this were an action-movie, Hamlet might be entirely
sympathetic, and his enemies altogether despicable;
however it's characteristic of Shakespeare's tragedies
that our sympathies are divided.
• The audience comes away from Hamlet liking the prince very
much. He is a thinker, and he is funny. We see into his own
mind and discover him to be genuine and sincere. We admire
him for resisting the evil around him.
• But he begins the play with a nasty, bitter outlook on life. If
you do not like everything about today's teenaged goth
culture (wearing black, being clever and disrespectful, playing
with people's feelings, complaining that life seems
meaningless and empty), you may not like the Hamlet
whom we meet at the beginning.
We see him as both stupid and
mean when he kills Polonius.
Say What?
• The blurring of appearance and reality
is a motif in this play
• Ideas that may appear on your test:
fate, supernatural, family, tragic hero,
justice…just to name a few.
Character List
• Hamlet: The Prince of Denmark. About 30
years old at the start of the play, Hamlet is
the son of Queen Gertrude and the late King
Hamlet, and the nephew
of the present king,
Cladius.
•Claudius: The King of
Denmark, Hamlet’s uncle,
and the play’s antagonist
• Gertrude: The Queen of
Denmark, Hamlet’s
mother, recently
married to Claudius
• Polonius: The Lord
Chamberlain of
Claudius’ court; father
of Laertes and Ophelia
• Horatio: Hamlet’s close
friend, who studied with
him at the university in
Wittenberg
• Ophelia:
Polonius’s
daughter, who
obeys her father
and her brother,
Laertes. Hamlet
has been in love
with her.
• Laertes:
Polonius’s son
and Ophelia’s
brother
• Fortinbras: The young Prince of
Norway, whose father the king (also
named Fortinbras) was killed by
Hamlet’s father (also named Hamlet).
• The Ghost: The specter of Hamlet’s
recently deceased father
• Marcellus and
Bernardo: Officers
who first see the
ghost and who call
Horatio to witness it.
Marcellus is present
when Hamlet first
encounters the ghost.
• Francisco: A soldier and guardsman at
Elsinore (the castle)
• Reynaldo: Polonius’s servant, who is sent
to France by Polonius to check up on and
spy on Laertes
Tragic hero
• A tragic hero has the potential for
greatness but is doomed to fail.
• He makes some sort of tragic flaw, and
this causes his fall from greatness.
• Realizes he has made an irreversible
mistake
• Faces and accepts death with honor
• Meets a tragic death
Tragic heroes are:
• Born into nobility
• Responsible for their own fate
• Endowed with a tragic flaw
• Doomed to make a serious error in
judgment
Themes
• Moral corruption and the consequent
dysfunction of family and state.
• Revenge and the complexity of taking
revengeful action in relation to honor and
religion (the opposition of societal
expectations)
• Appearance and reality and the difficulty of
discovering and exposing the truth in a corrupt
society.
• Mortality and the mystery of death.
• Action and Inaction – which is worse?
• Women and their power/powerlessness
• Madness – What defines it? How do we know
when it exists? When does pretending become
reality?
Motifs
• Disease, rotting, decay as the manifestation
and consequence of moral corruption.
• Actors and the theatre as highlighting the
deception, illusion and role-playing of major
characters in the play; also as holding a mirror
up to nature, exposing the corruption of the
court.
• Ears and hearing as needed to discover the
truth in such a corrupt and dangerous world;
also as vehicles for murder and for distortion
of the truth
• Poison – literal, moral, and societal (and
thus, political)
