Hamlet Questions - Entire Play PDF

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Hamlet Act One Questions Act One, Scene One 1. What purpose is served by act one, scene one? 2. What are some of the suspicions Bernardo, Francisco and Horatio raise connected with the appearance of the ghost? Act One, Scene Two 1. What is your first impression of Claudius and Gertrude? Why do you have this opinion? 2. A soliloquy is Shakespeare’s way of letting us into the private mind and heart of a character. The mind of Hamlet, in fact, is the very centre of the play. Consider the following excerpts from Hamlet’s first soliloquy (1.2.129-160). Beside each excerpt from this first soliloquy, write down two characteristics or traits that would explain what that excerpt says about Hamlet: a) “O that... the Everlasting had not fixed/His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter.” b) “How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable/Seem to me all the uses of this world!” c) “Things rank and gross in nature/Possess [the world] merely.” d) “Frailty, thy name is woman.” e) “But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.” Act One, Scene Three 1. What is your impression of Ophelia? List at least three qualities and support each with reference to this scene. 2. Already in act one, Laertes is being set up in contrast to Hamlet. In what specific ways he differ from the protagonist in the play? 3. Polonius gives Laertes advice before he returns to France. List the advice he offers. What does this “list” and the way Polonius deal with his children reveal about him? Act One, Scene Four 1. How does Shakespeare create a sympathetic background for the arrival of the ghost in the first two lines of the scene? 2. Shakespeare brilliantly slips in some background information on Claudius before the ghost’s appearance. What does the audience learn about Claudius? 3. The audience can also glean further characteristics of Hamlet from lines 8-38. What are these? Act One, Scene Five 1. What information does the ghost pass on to Hamlet? 2. Immediately after the ghost’s exit, Hamlet says, “Yea, from the table of my memory/I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records,/All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past./And thy commandment all alone shall live/Within the book and volume of my brain,/Unmixed with baser matter.” Then at the close of the scene, Hamlet’s last words are, “O, cursed spite,/That ever I was born to set it right!” The contrast between these two speeches points very early on to the tragedy of the play. What is this tragedy? (Remember, Shakespeare does not allow fate to control the life of the hero in his tragedies; the catastrophe is usually a result of the characters’ own actions or inactions and personality traits.) 3. Why does Hamlet decide to feign madness from here on in? 4. The ghost’s appearance stresses the Queen’s adultery; however, the ghost does strike a note of compassion for her as well. What does he say?

Act Two, Scene One 1. What does Polonius want Reynaldo to do? Why is this a delicate matter? 2. Why is Ophelia upset? 3. What conclusion does Polonius draw from Ophelia’s news? 4. What does this scene suggest about Polonius? Act Two, Scene Two 1. Who are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? Why do Claudius and Gertrude ask them to stay in Elsinore? 2. What news does Voltemand bring from the King of Norway? 3. What does Gertrude mean when she says to Polonius, “More matter with less art.”? 4. Why does Polonius believe that Hamlet is “mad”? How will he test his theory? 5. How does the text of the play change from about line 220-545? 6. How does Hamlet behave toward Polonius? 7. After the arrival of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, what explanations do they give about Hamlet’s emotional state? What is Hamlet’s response? 8. Why is Hamlet excited by the arrival of the players? 9. What are the social circumstances which have caused the players to go on tour? 10. Why does Hamlet ask the player s to recite a section of a play about the Trojan War? 11. What thoughts and feelings does Hamlet express in the soliloquy at the end of Act II? 12. Explain the concluding couplet of Hamlet’s second soliloquy.

Act 3 Questions Act Three, Scene One 1. How much have Rosencrantz and Guildenstern learned from /about Hamlet? 2. What does Polonius give Ophelia to read? Why? What response does his remark get from Claudius? Why is this speech of Claudius’ important? 3. How is Hamlet’s fourth soliloquy different from his first two? What is the main idea of this soliloquy? 4. What happens between Hamlet and Ophelia in the so-called “Nunnery scene”? 5. How does Claudius respond to what he has seen and heard? Is he convinced on Hamlet’s lovesickness? How does he intend to deal with Hamlet? Act Three, Scene Two 1. What advice does Hamlet have for the actors? Why? 2. Why does Hamlet say he especially likes Horatio? Does he see him as different or similar to himself? 3. What function is served by the discussion of Polonius as an actor? 4. How does the play-within-the-play or the mousetrap reflect the issues bothering Hamlet? What lines would hit the intended audience hardest? 5. What is Claudius’ mood as he stops the play? How does Hamlet respond? If Hamlet has learned that Claudius is indeed guilty, Claudius has also learned something from the presentation. What has Claudius learned? 6. What message do Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have for Hamlet? 7. Read Hamlet’s fifth soliloquy carefully. How is it different from the others? What is it’s mood? What is happening to Hamlet? Act Three, Scene Three 1. What has Claudius decided to do with Hamlet? Who will go with him? 2. Where is Polonius going? 3. What does Claudius admit in his attempt to pray? Why can’t he ask for forgiveness?

4. What happens when Hamlet enters? Why doesn’t Hamlet kill Claudius then? What is ironic about Hamlet’s decision? Act Three, Scene Four 1. How successful is the first part of the interview between Gertrude and Hamlet? What goes wrong? Who controls the conversation? 2. What device does Hamlet use to force Gertrude to consider what she has done? 3. Hamlet seems to be getting through to Gertrude when the Ghost appears. Why does the Ghost appear at this point? How is this appearance different from his appearances in Act 1? What is his message to Hamlet? 4. Does Hamlet succeed in what he intended to do? What is Gertrude’s state of mind when she leaves? 5. What does Hamlet think of his upcoming trip to England? What does he expect to do?

Act Four Questions Act Four, Scene One 1. Does Gertrude abide by Hamlet’s order? How does Gertrude deceive Claudius? 2. Claudius claims, “my soul is full of discord and dismay” (4.1.45). Who is he talking to? Why is this quotation significant? 3. Why does Claudius blame himself for Polonius’s death? Explain his reasoning.

Act Four, Scene Two 1. Hamlet begins this scene by saying, “safely stowed” (4.2.1). What literary device is used in this scene? What is the purpose of this scene in relation to this device? 2. What is the name that Hamlet calls Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? Why does he call them it? 3. Hamlet playfully tells Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, “[t]he body is with the king, but the king is not with/ the body. The king is a thing – of nothing” (4. 2.29-31). What is the significance of this quotation? Act Four, Scene Three 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

How do the people of Denmark think of Hamlet? How does Hamlet indirectly tell Claudius where the body is? What is the purpose of Hamlet’s “worm” speech? What is the purpose of the letter? What is the real reason Claudius sends Hamlet to England? How do you know?

Act Four, Scene Four 1. Scene 4 is the first time in the entire play that we hear Fortinbras speak. What previously mentioned information does the audience know about him? 2. Why is the Norwegian army there? 3. Where are Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern going? 4. Who does the Norwegian captain say his army is attacking? Is this answer direct or indirect? 5. Why does Hamlet admire Fortinbras?

6. What is the significance of Hamlet’s final line, “[m]y thoughts by bloody, or be nothing worth?”

Act Four, Scene Five 1. How is Hamlet’s madness different from Ophelia’s madness? 2. In your opinion, how does Claudius handle Laertes?

Act Four, Scene Six 1.

What news does Horatio receive in this scene?

Act Four, Scene Seven 1.

What plan do the King and Laertes devise to end Hamlet’s life? Can you see any flaws in this plan? 2. What news does the Queen bring? Note how the three people in the room react.

Act Five Questions Act Five, Scene One 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

The gravediggers’ work is quite grim, yet their conversation is humourous. Why do you think Shakespeare used humour at this point in the play? The gravedigger’s words have a certain parallel to the central actions of the play. What is this parallel? Considering Hamlet’s reaction to the gravedigger, how has his attitude toward death changed? How old is Hamlet? How does this information effect your opinion of him? Why does Hamlet get so angry with Laertes in the graveyard scene? Do you think Hamlet is sincere when he declares that he loved Ophelia? Why?

Act Five, Scene Two 1. What justification has Hamlet for the murders of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? 2. Satire is the use of ridicule, sarcasm and irony to expose and make fun of people’s foolishness and hypocrisy. The character of Osric is a satire of behaviour popular amoung members of the upper class in Shakespeare’s time. What affectations of the day are satirized in him? 3. Throughout most of the play, Hamlet has seemed unwilling to do what he knows he must do. It is only in this final scene that Hamlet seems fully willing to accept his destiny (l. 211215). What has caused this change in Hamlet? a. In his speech beginning “Does it not, think thee…” (5.2.63) he gives a new reason for killing Claudius. He says, “And is’t not to be damned/To let this canker of our nature come/In further evil?” How does this new motive change the nature of Hamlet’s revenge? 4. What does Laertes mean when he says he forgives Hamlet, “but in my terms of honour/I stand aloof” (5.2.243)? Is this a ridiculous thing for him to say? Explain.

5. How might the dying lines of Gertrude, Claudius and Laertes be viewed as typical of the way their characters have been presented throughout the play? 6. Personification is a figure of speech in which a thing or an idea is represented as a person or as having human characteristics. In this scene, death is personified twice – first as a police officer by Hamlet (329), and then as a hunter by Fortinbras (357-359). Why do you think death is pictured as having these two particular occupations in the play? 7. Claudius’s court and Fortinbras see the ending of the play as bloody carnage. Laertes, on the other hand, sees the poetic justice of the ending. Why this double view – justice and chaos? Which ending does Hamlet see? Explain. 8. Who “wins” in Hamlet? How?...