Hamlet

The Queen would have never set foot in a playhouse like The Globe. Plays at the Globe were attended by the lower class citizens. She did, however, enjoy watching plays at indoor playhouses or at her castle.

The exact reason why Gertrude drinks from the poison cup is not clear based on the text. Ultimately, there are two options 1) It's accidental - the cup was there, she was thirsty, she didn't realize it was poisoned.
2) It's intentional - she realizes Claudius is trying to kill her son, and drinks to keep it from Hamlet.


Olivier's 1948 film version leans towards option 2, as indicated by the shots of Gertrude before she drinks. Other Oedipal interpretations will similarly indicate that she knows what she's doing and why.


However, there is little in what she says that suggests she knows the cup is poisoned. The king asks her not to drink it, she says she will. He notes in an aside that it is the cup with poison, and when dying she recognizes what has happened. The simpler explanation is that she does not realize it until too late.

Director's call. Claudius seems well-disposed to Hamlet at the start, but faced with Hamlet's insane (but not really insane) behaviour and the murder of Claudius's chief counsellor (a murder in which Claudius correctly identifies himself as the intended victim) his disposition towards him sours. Understandably so. By Act 4 he has decided that Hamlet must be killed because he's too darn dangerous. "Do it, England, for like the hectic in my blood he rages, and thou must cure me."

It would be normal to have a guard on the king's palace anywhere at any time. But you may be alluding to the fact that a ghost of the dead King Hamlet appears on the battlements every night.

He is stabbed by the tip of Laertes' poisoned rapier during their dual.

Not necessarily...

He is wounded by the rapier, but then stabs Laertes, and kills his uncle before he himself dies.

Elsinore. It's a real place in Denmark.

He isn't. Oh, he is not innocent, since he did in fact murder his brother in order to steal away his wife. But his administration is not corrupt, at least at the start of the play. He deals with the threat of Fortinbras efficiently and prudently; everybody seems to be happy with the job he is doing as king. Everyone except Hamlet, of course.

Hamlet hates Claudius, even before he meets the ghost. Whether it's because he expected to succeed his father as king, or he has the usual feeling of a stepchild to a step parent or both, nothing Claudius does can be right in Hamlet's eyes. When Claudius maintains the honoured custom of Denmark, Hamlet sneers "'tis a custom more honoured in the breach than in the observance."

In many productions, the director creates a Claudius who is just how Hamlet imagines him to be--licentious and alcoholic. Sometimes, though, the director shows that Hamlet is unbalanced, and can even go to the length of implying that what the ghost says to Hamlet is in fact what Hamlet hopes the ghost will say by having the actor playing Hamlet also voice the Ghost.

However on the face of the play itself, there is no particular reason to think that Claudius is a corrupt king until Hamlet sets the kingdom on its ear by killing Claudius's chief counsellor and causing disturbances at theatrical performances. The problem of dealing with Hamlet, both for his own safety and the safety of the kingdom, increasingly occupies Claudius's thoughts as the play proceeds. In Kenneth Branagh's film of the play, he has Fortinbras leading a full-blown invasion of Denmark, which the whole royal court is too distracted to even notice until it is too late.

One of the factors in Shakespeare's mind was likely the question of succession to the throne. As Queen Elizabeth had no children, many people became worried as she neared death about whether she would be succeeded in an orderly way. During her lifetime she had been threatened by those who wanted to replace her with Mary Queen of Scots, and her sister had been threatened by the pretender Lady Jane Grey. To the Elizabethan mind, the proper person to succeed Hamlet Sr. would be Hamlet, and Claudius was an usurper. Part of the theme of the play (as in other Shakespeare plays such as Macbeth, the eight plays in the War of the Roses cycle, and Julius Caesar) is that to disturb the passage of power to the heir is to cause an unstable political situation. In this sense the adminsistration of Claudius might have been seen to be corrupt just because he was the king's brother, not his son.

A small village; a little cluster of houses in the country.

Ophelia. She went crazy after Hamlet killed her father which led her to drown herself.

She feels very guilty and she tells Hamlet so. Hamlet asked her to not reveal that he is not really crazy. She then protects Hamlet for the murder of Polonius by telling the king that Hamlet has gone mad.

However, it is clear that Gertrude is not as guilty as you might think. She was not aware of the fact that Claudius had killed her first husband for her until Hamlet says "Almost as bad, dear mother, as to kill a king and marry with his brother." "To kill a king?" she asks. She had no idea. Nevertheless she was the motive, or part of the motive for the crime, and this makes her feel guilty.

All of the characters make poor decisions, but only two things are actually referred to as mad. Hamlet's madness is mostly feigned, but the things he does that the court sees as insane are to speak insultingly and cryptically, and to kill Polonius. Ophelia's madness is real, and consists of speaking cryptically and singing bawdy songs, handing out flowers, and either drowning herself or failing to save herself from being drowned. So the two overt types of madness are to be rude and inappropriate in public, and to show a reckless lack of regard for human life. Whether characters such as Hamlet and Claudius also display more subtle forms of madness is open to debate.

William Shakespeare's plays are commonly categorised as Comedies, Histories and Tragedies.

Hamlet is a Tragedy.

Fortinbras is heir to the throne of Norway. He is a parallel character to Hamlet. He wants to recover the lands that King Hamlet, Prince Hamlet's father, won away from Norway in combat on the day that Prince Hamlet was born. He asks for free passage across Denmark to attack Poland, but that may be a ruse to get his troops on Danish land to force his claim. [This is what has Claudius worried enough to add extra sentries at the start of the play.] At the end of the play, with all of the corpses littering the floor, Fortinbras assumes the throne of Denmark and orders the corpses to be carted away.

Act 1 Scene 2 Hamlet: "'tis an unweeded garden" Act 3 Scene 4 Hamlet: And do not spread the compost on the weeds to make them ranker Act 1 Scene 5 Ghost: And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed That roots itself in ease on Lethe Wharf

One of many examples is, "Oh God! God! How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world."

Horatio is the only balanced and self-controlled character in the play because he is more logic than emotional and is unbiased and unmoved by other characters actions and tragedies

The main plot is the revenge plot. Hamlet learns his father was killed by his uncle; he pretends to be crazy to get close to Claudius and does eventually kill him. There is a subplot about Ophelia. There is another subplot about his relationship with his mother. There is yet another about his relationship with Rosecrantz and Guildenstern.

4 active in the book, 3 active in the movie. Author and Oz series originator Lyman Frank Baum [May 15, 1856-May 5, 1919] identified four main witches who are active in his story: Glinda the Good Witch of the South, the Good Witch of the North, and the Wicked Witches of the East and of the West. The original count was six or seven. For the world of Oz originally had four wicked witches. But Glinda and her colleague managed to take over the Quadling country of the South and the Munchkinland of the North, respectively, from the Wicked Witches who had been ruling in those two lands. In addition, Baum brings in the story of Gayelette, a beautiful princess and powerful sorceress of the North. Is she a seventh witch, in addition to the two previously Wicked Witches of the North and of the South; the two Wicked Witches of the East and of the West; and the two Good Witches of the North and of the South? Or is she the younger version of the older Good Witch of the North? In the 1902/1903 stage version of the book, Baum gives the Good Witch of the North the name Locasta. But there are inconsistencies between the play and the book versions even though Baum authored both! In the 1939 film version, there are only three witches: Glinda has become the Good Witch of the North, there's no Good Witch of the South, and there are the two Wicked Witches of the East and of the West.

Horatio is the only person who stays true to Hamlet through the entirety of the play. He always remains Hamlet's true friend throughout the story.

Hamlet's mother is Gertrude. She is the queen of Denmark and is married to Claudius. She was originally married to Old Hamlet before he was murdered by Claudius. Gertrude is a weak woman that needs a man around her (ie. her quick marriage to Claudius). Gertrude loves Hamlet dearly, but also watches as Hamlet is sent away to his death.

France; keep thoughts to himself ,restrain himself

Hamlet is essentially a very unmotivated person. He is apathetic, and prefers to think rather than to act. However, the thing that drives his resolve (to kill Claudius, which becomes his goal in the play) is i) the resentment that his mother got over his father so fast and married his uncle, and ii) that his father's ghost appeared to him. It's not exactly certain what relationship Hamlet had with his father, but Shakespeare makes it seem as though perhaps that was one relationship that Hamlet was actually committed. The appearance of his father's ghost was the thing that motivated Hamlet early on in 'Hamlet'.

Act 1, scene 5

Ghost: "I find the apt;

And duller shoulst thou be than the fat weed

That rots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,

Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear:

'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,

A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark

Is by a forged process of my death

Rankly abused; but know, thou noble youth,

The serpent that did sting thy father's life

Now wears his crown."

Hamlet: "O my prophetic soul!

My uncle?"

This is meaning that Claudius is the "serpent" who murdered King Hamlet. Ironic isn't it, Claudius is King Hamlet's brother.

Romeo and Juliet and Midsummer Night's Dream both were written by Shakespeare.

There is an odd parallelism between the two plays, which were written at about the same time and have many similarities in style, especially a lot of rhymed couplets.

In one sense, Dream is like a mirror of R&J. Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, Dream is a comedy. The main plot of R&J is very like the plot of Pyramus and Thisbe, which is turned into a ridiculous farce by Quince and crew. Juliet's predicament of being ordered to marry a man when she loves another is also Hermia's. Juliet's solution is the tragic one; Hermia's is comic. Shakespeare doesn't often talk about fairies, but they are a big part of Dream and, son of a gun, there they are in a big long speech by Mercutio.

Day and night symbolism is most important in both plays. The key word in Dream is "moon" and in R&J it is "stars", both features of the night sky, but wholly contrasting ones. In Dream, reality is like the moon, the inconstant moon that nightly changes. Whatever is real, even the love of lovers for each other, can be changed by the fairies. A figurative jackass can become a literal one. But in R&J, reality is as constant as the northern star. The lovers are star-crossed, and those stars are not going to change, nor is there anything that they can do to change what is and what will be. The love of the lovers, far from being as fickle as the moon, will last forever, even into death.