Hamlet

It's called The Murder of Gonzago, but when asked, Hamlet calls it The Mousetrap.

Because he believes that because King Claudius is praying, he soul will be cleansed. Because of this, he would not be damned to hell or purgatory when he dies. Instead, Hamlet decides to wait until King Claudius has slept with the Queen later that night before killing him (theoretically his soul would be sullied because of this). The reason this is such a big deal is because the ghost of old King Hamlet wanders trapped in purgatory since he didn't have a chance to confess his sins.

Tragic flaw is a concept derived from Aristotle's poetics which was extremely popular in the 19th century and still has currency among schoolteachers who use older textbooks.

The idea is this: Tragedies have to have tragic heroes, main characters who have something bad happen to them. We have to sympathize with the tragic heroes, or otherwise we would conclude that they deserve what they get. But it is unfair to God to say that bad things happen to people because, well, they happen that way. We have to say that bad things happen to people because they have something wrong with them. This need to point a moralistic finger means that although we might think that the tragic hero is mostly good, there is something wrong with him. This "something wrong" is called a "tragic flaw".

The need to find these permanent flaws in people's characters has driven students to distraction trying to find some quality in the hero they can deplore and say "There! That's why the bad things happened to him."

In Act III, Scene 2, Lines 73-79, Juliet uses multiple oxymorons (contradictory statements) to describe her conflicting feelings toward Romeo. He murdered her cousin but is her husband and she loves him. I hope that helps =]

the person who said this was, I believe, in fact Hamlet himself at the beginning. If I am wrong forgive me, but to my educated knowledge I do believe dearly this is true. I hope this is at least some use to you - but yes, HAMLET SAID "To be, or not be - that is the question."

He was sleeping in his orchard when Hamlet's uncle, Claudius, poisoned him with hebenon.

Gertrude is quite shocked by Hamlet's confrontation. Not only did he kill Polonius in the room, but Hamlet also goes into a rage of criticism against his mother and sees the ghost, which Gertrude does not see.

Hamlet looks to make Claudius feel guilty in order to confirm his suspicions that Claudius killed his father. "The play's the thing, In which I'll catch the conscience of the king."

Additionally the play looks to show Gertrude her lack of loyalty to her dead husband (Hamlet's father).

Hamlet is excited by the players for 2 reasons. One, he is tired of the real world and the idea of having some sort of fantasy to occupy his time seems interesting. Also, he knows that he will use the play as a way to observe his uncle's behavior which will supply Hamlet with an answer to how his father died.

It was his job. He was a professional playwright. Hamlet was a story that had already been around for a while and (we think) had already been made into a play. Basically, the boys were sitting around and someone suggested a remake of the old Hamlet play. Shakespeare must have thought he could make something out of the story. Boy, was he right.

One of the overarching themes of Hamlet is the questioning of real verses feinted insanity. At the start of the play Hamlet is suicidal, restraining himself only because it woul be considered a sin in the eyes of the church. After the encounter with the ghost of his father, Hamlet goes through a visible transformation. This convinces all characters, save for Horatio, believe him to be mad. At the end of the play, Hamlet kills Claudius, but not before being mortally wounded and poisoned. All traces of madness are gone and Hamlet finds himself at peace at having avenged his father. He tells Horatio to tell the story to the world so that they may learn from them.

Before Hamlet sees the ghost it has already been seen by Bernardo, Marcellus and Horatio - so it seems to be a real ghost. (This all happens in Act 1. Scene 1).

But what do we mean when we say a 'real ghost'? Shakespeare never answers that question.

The mouse trap is the play inside the play. Hamlet crates a play simulating his father's death in front of his uncle. Hamlet expects his uncle to react in order to show that he's the murderer.

Hamlet dies in Act 5, scene 2 when he is struck by Laertes with a poisoned sword. He and Laertes are dueling and Laertes is using a blade that Hamlet's Uncle Claudius has tainted with a strong poison.

The play 'Hamlet' is the second-most quoted writing in the western world, after the Bible. It is the most-often performed of the Shakespeare plays. It's also the Shakespeare play which has had the most written about it. So it's an important play because it's an important part of western culture.

Hamlet thinks that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are foolish little pawns because they do anything the King tells them to because they just want to be honored. Furthermore, he thinks they are just plain foolish because he tricks them and manipulates them multiple times to perfectly stage his plan.

The letter informs Horatio that Hamlet substituted Rosecrans' and Guildenstern's names for his own on the death warrant they were taking with them to the King of England, and that he was captured by pirates who held him for ransom and delivered him back to Denmark.

An anachronism is something which is from a different time period than its surroundings. Sort of like if you are watching a movie about Genghis Khan and someone pulls up in a tank. Or if you are watching the life of Abraham Lincoln and he talks about calling you on the cell phone.

The problem is that Romeo and Juliet does not have a specific time setting so there is no general background to contrast with. Everything is more or less consistent with the Italy of Shakespeare's time (except of course they speak English)

The ghost tells Hamlet the secret of his father's death. Hamlet's father was not killed by a serpent, but was murdered with poison. He also told hamlet that it was his uncle who murdered his father, and that he also seduced Gertrude, his mother. The ghost then tells Hamlet to avenge his father's death but to leave his mother alone.

Both are manipulated by their fathers. Hamlet is persuaded by his father's ghost that he must avenge his father's murder by Claudius, but he doesn't really want to do it. Ophelia is persuaded by her father, Polonius, to find out from Hamlet what is wrong, but she doesn't really want to do it. Both have their fathers killed. Both can be said to suffer insanity.

'I am Laertes' son' is the beginning of the Odyssey. The section is about Odysseus, son of Laertes, telling the beginning of his hard journery to King Alcinous on the island of Phaeacia. Before he was washed ashore to the island of Phaeacia, Odysseus has lost all his men on boats. He is the only one to survive the harsh journey, but yet, he is not home. Poseidon, God of the Sea, makes it rough for Odysseus to reach home, to Ithaca. When Odysseus is washed ashore on the island of Phaeacia, women that work for the king discovers Odysseus and takes him to bathe, feed, and cloth. Thus, when Odysseus eats with King Alcinous during a festival, he tells him who he is and begins his story of why he hasn't returned home for ten years.

hamlet says that he would never betray one of his friends.

It depends to a certain extent upon what you count as an adaptation. IMdb lists 182 films and TV shows which have a character called Hamlet. The earliest of these is the earliest film adaptation of Hamlet, by Sarah Bernhardt in 1900. Some of these are TV shows in which a production of Hamlet is alluded to tangentially. There are also some films, such as To Be or Not To Be, which refer to the play but it is not the main action.

On the other hand, productions in which the characters have different names and occasionally which have different plots are sometimes claimed to be adaptations of Hamlet. The most ridiculous example is The Lion King, which claims to be an adaptation of Hamlet, yet the supposed Hamlet character does not have a girlfriend who is the daughter of the king's counsellor, is not forced to remain in court after his father's death, does not feign madness, is not told about an appearance of the ghost of his father, is not spied upon by the king, does not have issues with his mother, does not kill his girlfriend's father, or the king's counsellor, or anyone, does not attend his girlfriend's funeral because she neither goes insane or dies, does not have any issue with his girlfriend's brother because she doesn't have one, and so is not the victim of an attempt on his life by the king, and finally who does not die at the end. If we count this as a Hamlet adaptation we must also count every film with some vague similarity to the Hamlet story, including Shakespeare's own Macbeth and Richard III, running the number of potential films into the thousands.

The clowns are just grave diggers (everyday civilian) who are digging Ophelia's grave at the time.