Hamlet

Hamlet doesn't kill the king in Act 4. He kills him in Act 5. Hamlet doesn't kill anyone in Act 4 and in fact he is offstage for most of the Act.

Hamlet doesn't kill the king in Act 4. He kills him in Act 5. He doesn't kill anyone in Act 4 and is in fact offstage for most of the Act.

Some would suggest that it is at the point where he finds Claudius praying and has a chance to kill him. Hamlet does not take the danger Claudius poses to him as seriously as he should. This would have been an excellent opportunity to deal with Claudius and stave off his malice, but Hamlet wants a perfect opportunity and thus allows that malice to set events in motion.

Others might look at the killing of Polonius as a critical moment. Before he does this he is just a harmless eccentric but now he is a dangerous criminal. Polonius's death speeds up Claudius's plans to get rid of Hamlet, drives Ophelia crazy and brings Laertes on a revenging rampage.

"Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder."

Simple as that. He wants young Hamlet to kill the man who murdered him. Hamlet summarizes the request as "Remember me!" but it's clear that what is meant is a call to vengeance.

In most of Claudius' asides he shows the audience that he is not a completely inhumane character. In act three he describes his guilt as a "heavy burden" showing that he is remorseful for his actions. In his aside in act five he tries to stop Gertrude from drinking the poison, then when she does he describes how it is "too late" showing that he may have had non-sefish feelings for Gertrude.

ophelia doesnt actually write hamlet a love letter..

Hamlet however does write one to ophelia

In Hamlet, Hamlet's step father and uncle Claudius could be considered his rival. This is because Hamlet seems to possess the Oedipus Complex. He competes with this new father for the possession of his mother.

If he is, it isn't for long. By the time he says, "But in the beaten way of friendship, what make you in Elsinore?" he's already sussed them out. From there on, it's a battle of wits between them, and Hamlet constantly gets the better of them.

Hamlet single handedly kills three people: Polonius (Laertes' father) by accident, Laertes with a poisoned rapier (that was originally Laertes' at the beginning of the duel, they scuffle and accidentally switch rapiers), and the King (his uncle) by forcing him to finish the poisoned wine (the same wine that Hamlet's mother, the queen, accidentally drank. it was originally meant for hamlet to drink). You could say that Hamlet basically killed rosencrantz and guildenstern too. He sent them to England in place of himself, and the letter that Hamlet was supposed to deliver said, "kill the person that delivers this message," so, naturally, the two were killed by authorities in England. Hamlet betrayed them, so he's somewhat responsible for their deaths.

It's actually pretty hard to tell. We always seem to see him through Hamlet's eyes, and Hamlet's view of him is twisted because he idolized his father (he is constantly comparing him to one of the gods) and hates his uncle and is always comparing them. We know that the real King Hamlet was a fearsome warrior because of what he did to Old Fortinbras, and how he "smote the sledded Polacks on the ice." He seems to have been an angry, quarrelsome, and stern old geezer, and not at all pleasant. Small wonder Gertrude felt her affection shifting to his brother.

At the beginning of the play, Hamlet is acting in a melancholy way for two reasons:

1 His father has died, and has been succeeded by his uncle.

2 His mother has married his uncle.

For reasons not entirely clear, Hamlet idolized his father but despises his uncle. He is still depressed about his father's death long after everyone else has moved on. He is also depressed because his uncle, whom he despises, is now the king. He also cannot get over the fact that his mother does not share his dislike of his uncle and has married him.

As You Like It is a pastoral comedy, that is, a comedy extolling the benefits of country life, especially sheep herding. Such themes were common in the plays, poems (think Marlowe's A Passionate Shepherd to his Love) and song lyrics (think Morley's Now is the Month of Maying) of the Elizabethan Era. It is also, although not a musical in the sense we would normally think of it, a play with a lot of music in it. Shakespeare had to write the lyrics for a bunch of new songs which would appear in the play.

Under the Greenwood Tree is a nice pastoral lyric, perfect for this play.

William Shakespeare did not write novels. Hamlet is not a novel. It's a play. They are very very different. Novels are to be read. Plays are to be watched.

Hamlet is considered one of the greatest works of literature because it touches on a great many themes. A few of the major ones are "What is the point of life?", "Is revenge justified?", "What is sanity?", "How should we deal with death?", "How should children deal with parents who go wrong?" etc. etc.

I recommend you immediately watch a movie of the play or, better yet, buy a ticket to see it played live at a theatre.

Hamlet is still mourning his father's death while his mother has quickly ended her mourning and has remarried. The "nighted colour" is the colour of night, which is to say, black. Gertrude wants Hamlet to cast off his black clothes, to stop mourning.

Assuming you are talking about Act II, Ophelia describes how Hamlet came to her chamber, looking disheveled and unkempt, looking depressed, unable to speak, but looked at her, sighed, and wandered away, distracted.

Yes, rather quickly. Claudius does not use the time-honoured device of liars by insisting "You've got to believe me." Instead he says;

"Go but apart,

Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will

That they may judgment make twixt you and me.

If by direct or by collateral hand

They find us touched we will our kingdom give,

Our crown, our life and all that we call ours,

To you in satisfaction; but if not

Be you content to lend your patience to us"

Claudius offers to submit to a trial, before judges picked by Laertes himself, to determine whether he directly or indirectly killed Polonius. If he is found guilty, he will voluntarily give up his kingdom and his life, but if not, Laertes must accept that as the final word on the matter. Laertes accepts this offer. Either the trial proved Claudius's innocence or Laertes was so satisfied that he did not require it.

Of course Claudius is as wily as ever. Laertes is on the point of taking his life and kingdom by force anyway. If Claudius loses, he's no worse off, and if he wins he gains a useful and powerful ally and saves himself and his kingdom.

Many people die after being poisoned since the poison destroys the organs in the body. Sometimes, the doctors can stop the poisoning if caught early enough.

Ophelia is definitely very hurt by what Hamlet has said. Hamlet saying such a phrase only further pushes Ophelia's feeling that she was cheated by Hamlet, that the love they had together earlier was not real.

King Hamlet won, and therefore won certain territories in Norway, which young Fortinbras resents.

He interprets Claudius's action during the play as confirming the ghost's story. This is not something he sees so much as something he comes to believe. What he sees is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern telling him to go see his mother.

No. He is of the view that Hamlet will have a bride chosen for him, probably some woman of royal blood. He wouldn't be able to marry Ophelia even if he wanted to. (Ironically, Gertrude later reveals that she had intended that Hamlet should marry Ophelia, so Laertes was wrong.)

By sheer luck and nosiness. The nosiness comes in because he decides to have a look at Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's sealed orders, and finds that they are instructions to the English to execute him. Fortunately he has the equipment and skill to forge a new set of orders in which Rosencrantz and Guildenstern go to the chop in his place. He is also extremely lucky in that pirates attack and he ends up on the pirate ship, and the pirates agree to return him to Denmark.

Hamlet finds Claudius praying for forgiveness after the play. He decides that if he were to kill Claudius at that moment, Claudius would go to heaven rather than to hell. Hamlet decides to wait until he finds Claudius sinning, in order to kill him.

An example of a homonyms by Shakespeare is when Romeo and Mercutio are at the Capulet ball. Romeo says that Mercutio has a nimble sole, but that his own soul is heavy.

Somewhere around half of Shakespeare's plays were written after Julius Caesar. We cannot say which one was immediately afterwards, because we have no hard evidence of which plays were written when. Henry V is a possibility, although many scholars would reverse the plays and have Caesar follow Henry.