Hamlet

Some unanswered questions in Hamlet are:

Does Hamlet truly go "mad" or is it all an act? Does it matter?

Why doesn't anybody dislike Claudius even though he's a murderer?

Did Gertrude play a part in Hamlet's father's death?

Does the ghost of Hamlet's father tell him not to blame Gertrude, Hamlet's mother?

Does Hamlet love Ophelia?

Is Hamlet in love with his mother?

If he is in love with his mother is he also still in love with Ophelia?

The flag would be black, because it is a tragedy. Black was the color used to indicate tragedy. White indicated comedy. And red was the color for history, since much blood was shed in the battle of history.

In the church.

Yes. "Let the world take note, you are the most immediate to the throne" says Claudius. Rosencrantz confirms it: "How can that be, when you have the voice of the King himself for your succession in Denmark?"

We cannot answer that. We know that Claudius was in love with her before King Hamlet's death because he lists "his queen" as one of the motives of the murder. Whether she reciprocated we cannot say.

Claudius is Hamlet's uncle (his father's brother)

Are you referring to his line "Frailty thy name is woman"? What he means by this is that Gertrude, a particular woman, is "frail" or weak for giving in to her desires and marrying Claudius.

Fortinbras says something like this, as follows:

"Let four captains

Carry Hamlet like a soldier to the stage

For he was likely, had he been put on

To have proved most royal"

It was not explicitly stated in the text, but many assume that Ophelia was Hamlet's girlfriend.

A sleepy hamlet is a quiet village

The opening lines start the play off like other plays, with an exposition. There are guards waiting for an impending attack while one of the guards fear that there is a ghost among them. The unease comes from the guard who is "sick at heart" (the ghost is making him nervous).

He actually said: "I cannot make you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseas'd" And by this he meant of course that he was mentally ill so his answers were bound to be sick.

guard

Because he and King Claudius planned it...they put poison on the end of the sword so that when Laertes stabs Hamlet, Hamlet dies.

The motive also has to do with the fact that Laertes is avenging his father's (Polonius's) death, whom was killed by Hamlet.

No a Hamlet is just a few houses in the same area

Shakespeare was not a particularly sexy actor; those parts all went to the leading man Richard Burbage. (Mind you there was that anecdote about the fan who wanted to sleep with Burbage after seeing him play Richard III, but Shakespeare got there first. This is a real story from Shakespeare's time, but is likely a joke and not a rumour. Nevertheless, it proves that someone thought Shakespeare was sexy). In Hamlet, Shakespeare was supposed to have played the ghost which was not a sexy part at all, not even when he shows up in his widow's bedroom.

Or did you mean "sexist" as opposed to "sexiest"? If so, it is true that the character of Ophelia is mistreated and marginalized by all the men in her life: her father, her brother and her boyfriend. Her brother gives her a pile of advice about not going too far with Hamlet who is not in control of who he marries, being a prince. She snaps back that he should follow his own freaking advice. Her father tells her she should lay off Hamlet because young men do all their thinking with their pants. More obnoxiously, he uses her as bait to get Hamlet to reveal his secrets where he can be overheard. Hamlet catches on (maybe Ophelia intended that he should) and he gets violently angry and unbelievably rude and demeaning to her as a result.

The other woman in the play, Hamlet's mother Gertrude, is portrayed as a strong silent type who is totally adored by her husband. (By both of them, actually) But Hamlet for some reason is really angry with her from the start for marrying Uncle Claudius, and he does some pretty rude and mean things to her as well.

But here's the thing: just because Shakespeare has Hamlet say "Now could I drink hot blood" does not make Shakespeare a vampire. Hamlet is quite mean and rude to the women in his life, and is actually quite a misogynist, but that does not mean that Shakespeare was that way. In fact, Hamlet's misogynistic attitude contrasts with what we see of the women Hamlet is dealing with, so we know that we cannot take Hamlet's assessment of Ophelia's or Gertrude's character (or much else, actually) as gospel. Hamlet may be sexist, but that does not mean that Shakespeare was.

1. Polonius and Claudius send Ophelia to talk to Hamlet to see how he responds to her. They wanted to find out if Hamlet truly was mad because of his love for Ophelia.
2. Hamlet asks whether it is better to live or not to live. Should people suffer with what is going on around them or should they fight? He says that the only reason he and other people are not committing suicide is because they are scared of what might happen to them after death.
3. The king's view has changed. He does not believe that the madness was caused by his love for Ophelia
4. "Madness in great ones must not unwatched go." The king says this because he is not truly sure if Hamlet is mad because of Ophelia or not. He realizes that Hamlet is clever and could be up to something. He could think that Hamlet knew that Polonius and he were spying on him with Ophelia.

He decides to "put an antic disposition on" and to swear his friends to secrecy.

At his time, there were no props, no backstage, every character entered the stage on his feet and exitted the same way, except when it was dead. In this case the authors had to write lines such as "Carry this ugly/sad corpse away, soldiers!" and out he went!

He's going to go look into this whole "ghost" business. He'll show up a little before midnight to make sure he gets there in time. He's skeptical, but he trusts Horatio.

There is no 'narrator of the play". In some plays we see actors doing the actions while a narrator tells us what is going on. Our Town, for example, or anything written for Grade Two students. Hamlet is not that kind of play. Hamlet does have a special friend in Horatio, in who he confides, which makes him a confidant (unless he is being played as a woman, in which case she would be a confidante) and who he asks, as he dies, to "tell my story". Horatio asks Fortinbras to "let me speak to the yet unknowing world how these things came about" and Fortinbras says "Let us haste to hear it", but the play ends before Horatio narrates anything, mostly because we have seen everything which has happened and it would be boring to hear it all again. (That didn't stop Shakespeare in plays like Cymbeline or Twelfth Night, however.)

No.

One easy spot is where Hamlet messes with Polonius using double meanings. act three, scene two. It should be pretty obvious once you start reading. Another is the way he mocks Claudius at the opening of the play. He snipes at Claudius almost the entire time he's there, from "no my lord I am too much in the sun" to "a little more than kind and less than kin." Either place is easy, but I'd write about our first glimpse of Hamlet as readers. His constant attacks on Claudius and use of double meanings are easy places to see how smart he is. One easy spot is where Hamlet messes with Polonius using double meanings. act three, scene two. It should be pretty obvious once you start reading. Another is the way he mocks Claudius at the opening of the play. He snipes at Claudius almost the entire time he's there, from "no my lord I am too much in the sun" to "a little more than kind and less than kin." Either place is easy, but I'd write about our first glimpse of Hamlet as readers. His constant attacks on Claudius is a clear display of Hamlet's intelligence.

== == Hamlet's relationships with the characters around him tend to reflect on the existenestial questions so prevalent in Shakespeare's works. For example, his relationship with his foil (a foil being a character in contrast with the protagonist in order to highlight a particular trait or action of the protagonist). Hamlet's thought instead of action is contrasted with Fortinbras, and their relationship represents the line between just action that turns men into beasts ( What is a man if his chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed? (IV. iv.) ) versus pure thought ("a thought which, qurtered, hat but one part widom and ever three parts coward" (IV.iv) ) In the end, the fact that the one rational character Horatio, is left on stage presuades the audience to the idea that a middle ground is necessary between the two.

No, you've got it backwards. It is Horatio who says, "These are but wild and whirling words, my lord." to Hamlet. Hamlet is a little discombobulated after seeing his father's ghost.