Scene One

1. What is the mood of the men on watch?
2. Why is Horatio appointed to speak with the Ghost?
3. What political entanglement between Denmark and a neighboring land contributes to alertness on guard duty?
4. Mentioned in the scene are two Hamlets, father and son, and two Fortinbras characters, father and son.  The men on watch call each other by name.  Who is referred to by his title only?
5. To whom do the men say that they owe their loyalty?
6. How has the mood changed by the end of the scene?

Scene Two

1. From the information in Claudius’s opening address, give an account of the personal life of the royal family and of the affairs of state.
2. How does Hamlet’s feeling about a suitable period of mourning conflict with that held by Claudius and by Gertrude?  How is he distinguished from them—in clothes, words, and attitude?
3. Why does Claudius want Hamlet to stay in Elsinore?
4. What are Hamlet’s feelings about the world in general and Denmark in particular before he hears anything about the Ghost?
5. What picture of the Ghost does Hamlet create by his rapid questioning of Horatio?
6. If you directed the staging of this scene, where on the stage would you place the King, Gertrude, the attendants, Polonius, Laertes, Hamlet?

The Action

1. How does the message given Hamlet by the Ghost reinforce the expectancy and apprehension of the opening scene on the wall?
2. What meaning beyond the physical actions do you perceive in Hamlet’s movement from the isolation of his solitary speech in Scene 2 to the fraternal oath-taking scene at the end of the act?
3. Marcellus senses that “something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”  How can an entire country be so identified with the death, or even with the murder, of one man?
4. Relate Hamlet’s desire for vengeance to his words, “The time is out of joint.  Oh, cursed spite/ That ever I was born to set it right!”
5. Working from your conclusions to the above questions, describe the overall purpose of Act I.

Characters

1. Why is the Ghost correct to call Claudius a “smiling villain”?
2. How does Gertrude deserve the Ghost’s sympathy and concern?
3. Hamlet does not appear to be the man best suited to carry out a plan of revenge.  What instances in his speeches or actions support this view?
4. What qualities in Hamlet’s character as revealed in Act I prove valuable to him in his mission of revenge?
5. Hamlet is a young prince whose way to the throne has been usurped by his uncle Claudius.  Explain his statements and movements accordingly.  Does Hamlet indicate that he is ambitions for the throne?  Support your answer.
6. What similarities are there in the positions of Laertes and Hamlet in their families?

Plot

1. How are the incidents surrounding the Ghost’s appearance arranged to convey the maximum amount of mystery?
2. Would Act I have been more or less effective had it opened with the enactment of the actual murder of the King?  Explain your answer.
3. How might your first impression of Claudius have been affected had the Ghost told his tale to the men in Scene 1?
4. The events of Act I take place over a twenty-four hour period.  What parts of the day are more emphasized than others?  How does this influence the main action as well as the mood of this act?
5. Other than the fact that they are both living in Claudius’s court, what links the similar but otherwise separate stories of Laertes and Hamlet?

Imagery

1. Relate the visual picture of the men on watch peering into the darkness to the action of the first act.
2. How does Hamlet’s “nighted color” relate to his immediate situation? to his character? To the problems of Denmark?
3. “With an auspicious and a dropping eye” is the way Claudius describes the mood of the time.  Explain the changes of scene from castle wall to council room, and so forth, in light of this image. 
4. Locate the image by which Hamlet conveys his sense of the brief passage of time between his father’s death and his mother’s second marriage.  What is the effect of this image?

Language

1. Explain how the shift in light—from dark night to the approach of dawn after the cock’s crow has chased the Ghost—is reflected in the speech of the men in the first scene.
2. Does the manner of Polonius’s speech—the long strings of wise sayings, his extended puns so different from Hamlet’s—tell you something about his character?  Explain your answer.

Scene One

1. What job has Polonius hired Reynaldo to do?  By what means does Polonius recommend that Reynaldo accomplish this task?

2. Describe Hamlet’s appearance when he entered Ophelia’s room.

3. How does Polonius react to Ophelia’s story?  How does it change the attitude he had toward Hamlet and Ophelia in Act I?

Scene Two

1.      Why did the King as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to come to Denmark?  Why are they particularly qualified for the job they have been asked to do?

2. Give a clear account of the news brought by the ambassadors who have returned from Norway.

3. What evidence does Polonius introduce to help his case against Hamlet? What trap does Polonius set for Hamlet?

4. Describe Hamlet’s “antic disposition.”  What does Polonius say that indicates he has some doubt about Hamlet’s madness?

5. What new fact about Hamlet’s interests is brought to light by his meeting with the players?  What does Hamlet want the players to do?  What does Hamlet hope to accomplish by using the players in this way?

6. Hamlet takes stock of himself in the last speech of the act.  What is the result of his self-estimate?  Do you agree with him?

The Action

1. Out of Polonius’s meeting with Reynaldo, the King’s with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and Hamlet’s with the players grow three similar tasks.  How are they parallel?  In what ways do they differ?  Explore the various ways these incidents are presented to the audience.

2. Each of the two scenes in Act II reveals a new facet of Hamlet’s character.  Describe the development of the act from this point of view, beginning with Ophelia’s disclosure to her father that Hamlet has visited her, and Polonius’s decision to inform the King about this visit.

3. The mystery and expectation of Act I give way in Act II to the use of specific rational methods for exposing the rot in Denmark.  Is Act II any less passionate because of this emphasis on contrivance?  How are the strong feelings of Polonius, Claudius, and Hamlet revealed, and how do they contribute to the furthering of the action?

Characters

1. What do we learn about Ophelia in this act?

2. What kind of man is Polonius?  Is he a good talker?  What kind of language does he use, and what do others think of it?  Is Polonius a good father?  A good courtier? A good Dane? A good Christian?  Hamlet has nothing but contempt for him.  Formulate an argument to convince Hamlet of the old man’s worth.

3. Explain the meaning, by illustration from Act II, of Polonius’s remark to Reynaldo that he can “by indirections find direction out.”

4. A picture of Hamlet as lover, poet, lunatic, devoted fan of the theater, actor, and private detective emerges from Act II.  Use appropriate quotations from this act to prove this statement.

5. Compare the picture of Hamlet as outlined in question 4 to the picture you have of the following characters, treating them with respect to Hamlet’s own interests and skills: young Fortinbras, Laertes, Horatio, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.  Who compares most favorably with Hamlet?  Who least?

Plot

1. In Act II, are the three plots invented to disclose the truth arranged (a) from most to least interesting, (b) least to most important, (c) most to least important, (d) in no special order?  Defend whichever of the above statements you think valid.  Consider the victims of the plots as well as those who contrive them.

2. The traveling players innocently come to Elsinore to perform.  How do they become crucial to the plot of the play?

Imagery

“Denmark’s a prison,” Hamlet tells his boyhood friends.  What is the meaning of this metaphor?  Where else is it picked up?

Language

“More matter, with less art,” Gertrude tells Polonius when she becomes annoyed with him.  What bothers her in his presentation of his findings about Hamlet?

General Questions

1. The two methods of playwriting listed on the players’ handbill were “scene individable, or poem unlimited.”  If the first is a play in which all the characters are noble, the time is twenty-four hours or thereabouts, and the action takes place only on one set, and the second is a play which presents time, place, character—everything—as it needs to be fully developed, what kind of play is Hamlet?  Be specific, and use quotations from the text to prove your points.

2. How has Polonius’ passing remark in Act I that Hamlet’s words of love to Ophelia were merely “springes to catch woodcocks” become central to the action of the play?

Scene 1

1. What part does Ophelia play in the plan of Polonius and the King?  What is her reaction to the way Hamlet speaks to her?
2. How does Claudius’s opinion of Hamlet’s condition differ from Ophelia’s?  To what in Hamlet’s speeches is Claudius sensitive that Ophelia is not?
3. What new move does Polonius suggest?

Scene 2

1. What does Hamlet expect of Horatio?  How does the way he speaks to him differ from the manner in which he speaks to everyone else?
2. Describe the dumb show.  Describe both Hamlet’s and Claudius’s actions from the beginning of the “play within the play” to its end.

Scene 3

1. What steps does Claudius take to rid himself of Hamlet?
2. Why does Hamlet hesitate to kill Claudius when Claudius is at prayer?

Scene 4

1. Whom does Hamlet think he is stabbing when he strikes through the curtain?
2. What results from Hamlet’s interview with Gertrude?
3. What new part of the King’s plan comes to the surface at the end of the scene?

The Action

1. The plans for several spying scenes were made in Act II.  Act III depicts three spying sequences—the King and Polonius on Hamlet and Ophelia, Hamlet and Horatio on the King during the performance of the play, and Polonius on Hamlet and Gertrude.  Each of these has a similar motive—to get to the truth.  Compare the results of the three sequences, considering which is most central to the movement of Act II and the play as a whole.
2. Act III, Scene 2, is the turning point of the play.  From the moment Claudius betrays himself during the performance of the play, Hamlet has no choice but to act swiftly.  Defend or attack this statement using evidence from the text.
3. At the beginning of Act III, the King is still in the dark about Hamlet’s reasons for acting as he does, and Hamlet is not yet sure that the King is guilty of the murder.  At the turning point of the play, answers to both their uncertainties come simultaneously.  What action by the King marks this moment?

Characters

1. What is Hamlet’s estimate of Horatio?  Compare his earlier talk with Horatio with that in Act III.  Is there any change or development?
2. What is the manner of Hamlet’s relationship with Ophelia?  What can you tell about Ophelia from her reactions to Hamlet’s sharp retorts?
3. In Scene 1, Hamlet sinks to the darkest depths of all his black moods.  Compare his thoughts about suicide, pro and con, in Scene 1 to his first statements about it in Act I, Scene 2, lines 129 and following.  How have his feelings changed?
4. What character trait brings about Polonius’s death?
5. What are Gertrude’s feelings when she says, “O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain”?
6. What is the result of Claudius’s self-appraisal when at prayer?

Plot

1. Does the dumb show before the actual play serve to weaken suspense or heighten it?  How?
2. There are several little rehearsals of actions before the major performances, such as Polonius spying on Hamlet and Ophelia as a prelude to the later scene in Gertrude’s room, and Hamlet rehearsing the players for their evening performance as prelude to the court performance.  Can Hamlet’s impulse to kill Claudius as he prays be seen as a prelude to his killing Polonius?  In each prelude, the concerns of the characters, and the language in which they express these concerns, prevent serious consequences.  Explain how the circumstances in the major performances act upon the characters to produce violently different language and dire results.
3. By the introduction of what figure from Act I is the spirit of that act injected into Act III, scene 4?

Imagery

1. By what means is a sense of both strength and weakness conveyed through Hamlet’s remark: “And thus the native hue of resolution/ Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought”?
2. In Scene 1, what image does Ophelia use to describe Hamlet’s mind when she cries, “Oh, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown”?  How does she thus connect her conception of Hamlet to the action in the world around her?
3. Explain Act III as a representation of a mousetrap.  What part serves as the bait?  What part acts as the trigger?
4. Using the action of Scene 2, explain Hamlet’s remark that a play holds a “mirror up to nature.”

Language

1. How does the rapid-fire delivery of Hamlet’s speeches to Ophelia color their meaning?
2. Through what device beyond language is Hamlet’s triumphant mood at the end of the players’ play brought out?

General Questions

1. Describe the relationship of each of the major characters to the theater, considering their own remarks, such as Polonius’s revelation that he once played Julius Caesar.

Scenes 1, 2, 3

1. Where has Hamlet hidden Polonius’s corpse?
2. What excuse does Claudius use for sending Hamlet to England?  What has he planned for Hamlet upon his arrival there?

Scene 4

1. What is Hamlet’s reaction to his encounter with Fortinbras’ army?  Why is Fortinbras’ army on the march?  What is its destination?
2. To what physical ailment does Hamlet compare the faults of nations as he sees them displayed in Fortinbras’ war with Poland?

Scene 5

1. What are the outward signs of Ophelia’s madness?
2. On whom does Laertes blame his father’s death?  How does Laertes’ response to his father’s murder compare with Hamlet’s movement toward revenge?

Scene 6

1. What are the contents of Hamlet’s letter to Horatio?
2. Compare Hamlet’s mood and attitude toward other characters as expressed in this letter with what he displayed in Act III.

Scene 7

1. How does Claudius win Laertes’ confidence?
2. Claudius tells Laertes that Hamlet is very popular with the common people.  How does Hamlet’s letter to Horatio support Claudius’ statement?  What earlier scenes in the play support this view of Hamlet?
3. Who is Lamond?  How does Claudius use Lamond’s reputation for his own purposes?
4. Outline Claudius’ new plan for trapping Hamlet.
5. How does Ophelia’s condition lead to her death?

The Action

1. The first three scenes of Act IV seem to hold together as a group.  By what strands of plot are the three connected?  How does Claudius speed the various characters on their way toward their fates?  How does his sure, calm order to ship Hamlet to England grow out of his perception of the events of Act III?
2. Scene 4 acts as a natural break after the three terse scenes before it.  In what ways does it recall earlier strains in the play?
3. Two new tense elements break out in the remainder of Act IV: Laertes’ rebellion and Ophelia’s madness.  How are these elements, which are at first presented alternately, at last unified into one action at the end of the act?

Characters

1. Compare Laertes’ response to the news of his father’s murder to Hamlet’s first response to the news of the murder of his father.  Compare also the circumstances in which each character finds himself at the time he learns of the murder, and the relative definiteness and reliability of the reports he receives.
2. Ophelia has gone mad from grief, but other sources of remorse appear in her songs and remarks.  What else does she appear to be mourning besides her father’s death?
3. Try to put yourself fin Gertrude’s place and plot her mental action and her thoughts and emotions during the course of Act IV.  To whom is she most loyal?  Does she act as if she knows what she wants?  In what ways is she similar to Ophelia?

Plot

1. Consider how the death of Polonius in Act III leads, in Act IV, to the further exposure of something rotten in the state of Denmark.
2. There seems to be more individual suffering in Act IV than there is earlier.  Consider the various ways in which mental and physical suffering are portrayed in the act as a whole.
3. By what device is Hamlet kept in the minds of the other characters when he is not on stage in Act IV?

Imagery

1. The body is often compared to a state or kingdom, and the state to a body.  Hamlet describes political ailments as an “imposthume,” a cancerous growth in the body of a state.  What in Denmark corresponds to this “imposthume” that Hamlet sees lying behind the march of Fortinbras’ army?
2. Why is it fitting that Ophelia, in her madness, should talk so much about flowers?  How do flowers play a part in her death, and why is it fitting that they should do so?

Language

1. How does Laertes’ use of language compare with that of Polonius in Acts I-III?  Cite the passages in which you feel Laertes comes closest to public speechmaking.  Relate these passages to the content of the speeches as a whole to see if they are appropriate to the moment.

General Questions

1. “Frailty, thy name is woman.”  With these words Hamlet early in the play gives his appraisal of feminine nature.  Would you say that the events of Acts III and IV support or dispute Hamlet’s evaluation?  Why or why not?