hamlet

HAMLET

written by shaskespeare

The ghost of the King of Denmark tells his son Hamlet to avenge his murder by killing the new king, Hamlet's uncle. Hamlet feigns madness, contemplates life and death, and seeks revenge. His uncle, fearing for his life, also devises plots to kill Hamlet. The play ends with a duel, during which the King, Queen, Hamlet's opponent and Hamlet himself are all killed.

PLOT

the main characters are:-hamlet-claudius-gertrude-the gostpolonius-laertes-ophelia-horatio

CHARACTERS

“Elsinore” is the English spelling of Helsingør, a town on the eastern coast of Denmark. In Shakespeare’s lifetime, Helsingør was an important military location, the stronghold from which the King of Denmark controlled a narrow stretch of sea. AThe threat of invasion from neighboring countries is essential to the plot of Hamlet, which ends with the Norwegian prince Fortinbras storming the castle. The threat of invasion also contributes to Hamlet’s mood of anxious uncertainty.

setting

William Shakespeare

Hamlet

-The Impossibility of Certainty-The Complexity Of Action-The Mystery Of Death-The Nation As A Diseased Body-Performance-Madness-Doubt

themes

In Hamlet, physical objects are rarely used to represent thematic ideas. One important exception is Yorick’s skull. As Hamlet speaks to the skull and about the skull of the king’s former jester, he fixates on death’s inevitability and the disintegration of the body. He urges the skull to “get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favor she must come”—no one can avoid death (V.i.178–179). He traces the skull’s mouth and says, “Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft,” indicating his fascination with the physical consequences of death (V.i.174–175). This latter idea is an important motif throughout the play, as Hamlet frequently makes comments referring to every human body’s eventual decay, noting that Polonius will be eaten by worms, that even kings are eaten by worms, and that dust from the decayed body of Alexander the Great might be used to stop a hole in a beer barrel.

Yorick’s Skull

symbol

Yorick's skull