Hamlet

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.

Hamlet wants to revenge his father's death, and feels that it his duty as a son to kill Claudius. The dilemma in this soliloquy is, if he follows through then he has committed the sin of murder and would go to purgatory.

Claudius is not a full-blooded villain like Aaron in Titus Andronicus or Richard III in Richard III. He has committed murder, fratricide no less, because of his love and desire for his brother's wife. This is a very bad thing, but it appears that this is really the only bad thing he has done.

However, Hamlet's provocative and dangerous behaviour (which results in the death of Claudius's close advisor) makes him someone who cannot be safely left alive. "Do it, England", says Claudius, "for like the hectic in my blood he rages and thou must cure me. 'Til I know 'tis done, howe'er my haps, my joys were ne'er begun."

Laertes, on the other hand, is someone who is motivated, not by love or questions of safety for himself or the state, but out of revenge. He is the person who acts like we imagine the ghost wants Hamlet to act. So long as he can kill his man, he will "cut his throat i' the church".

If we step back from this, we may ask, what do we consider to be the best way to deal with killers like Hamlet? For Hamlet has certainly killed Polonius, and he had no right to do so. Should it be the job of the son of the deceased to get the killer back? Is revenge laudable in a civilized society? Or rather do we not say that the disposition of murderers should be left to the government, which in a monarchy is the king? From this perspective, Laertes's plot on Hamlet's life is much more villainous than Claudius's.

The gravedigger, not Hamlet, discovers the skull of the jester Yorick, who Hamlet knew as a child, and has been dead for many years.

It's called Elsinore in the play. The real-life city is Helsingør, a coastal city and regional capital in eastern Denmark. It was never actually the capital of the country, as it is in the play.

"Rosencrantz: To think, my lord, that if you delight not in man, what lenten entertainment the players shall receive from you. We coted them on the way, and hither are they coming to offer you service."

Hamlet didn't write any letters to Laertes--ah, you mean "Did Claudius read the letter Hamlet wrote to Claudius out loud to Laertes?" I confess that it is difficult to phrase this question so it is unambiguous. Yes, Claudius reads the letter he got from Hamlet out loud to Laertes and asks whether Laertes can explain it.