Suppose you are away at school and receive news of your father’s sudden death.

How would you feel?

What would you think?

What would you do?

Suppose that when you return home, you learn that your mother has already remarried.

How would you feel?

What would you think?

What would you do?

Suppose that after having always believed yourparents had a happy marriage, you observe your mother falling all over her new husband.

How would you feel?

What would you think?

What would you do?

Suppose that your mother’s new husband is your father’s brother.

How would you feel?

What would you think?

What would you do?

Act One I, i + ii

The Dane – King of Denmark

King Hamlet – dead – Hamlet’s father

King Fortinbras – dead king of Norway – killed by King Hamlet

Young Fortinbras - Prince of Norway – seeking the lands lost by his father

Claudius – Hamlet’s uncle – King of Denmark

Gertrude – Hamlet’s mother – Queen of Denmark

“our” “we” – royal “we”

Old Norway – Fortinbras’ uncle – King of Norway – old and sick

Class Participation for Hamlet

Earn participation points for:

Having your book open to the right pageReading and listening while play is being readPhone and headphones put away during reading/listeningAsking relevant questions at the appropriate time

Lose participation points for:

Talking during reading/listening timeOn phone or have headphones in during reading/listening timeSleeping or head down

Hamlet - Prince of Denmark

Claudius - King of Denmark, Hamlet's Uncle, Dead King Hamlet's brother

Gertrude - Queen of Denmark, Hamlet's mother

Horatio - Hamlet's friend

Polonius - chief counselor to the King

Laertes - son of Polonius

Ophelia - daughter of Polonius, Hamlet's love interest

Fortinbras - Prince of Norway

Setting - Elsinore Castle, Denmark

“My fate cries out!”

“Oh, cursed spiteThat ever I was born to set it right!”

“antic disposition”

“Be thou a spirit of health, or a goblin damned,

Act I Quotes (slide 1)   "Such was the very armor he had on when the

ambitious Norway he combated“ (I.i. )

  “Good Hamlet, cast thy knighted color off, And let thine eye look like a friend on

Denmark” (I.ii.). 

“Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew.” (I.ii)

 “Frailty, thy name is woman!” (I.ii) 

Act I Quotes (slide 2)  “My fate cries out!” (I.v)

"O my prophetic soul!" (I.v)

”Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” (I.iv)

“I perchance hereafter shall think meet To put an antic disposition on” (I.v).

“O cursed spite! That ever I was born to set it right!” (I.v)

Projection:Characters project their own weakness or guilt onto the cause for Hamlet's madness

Claudius: Hamlet has a secret

Gertrude: Her "Oer'hasty" marriage to Claudius

Polonius: His love for Ophelia

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: ambition

Hamlet Act IIPolonius sends Reynaldo to France with notes and money for Laertes. He tells Reynaldo to spy on Laertes while he is there.

Hamlet bursts into Ophelia’s closet (room) and frightens her with his wild appearance and behavior.

Claudius and Gertrude welcome Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, childhood friends of Hamlet and ask them to report back to them whatever they can find out about their “too much changed son.”

Hamlet Act II (con’t)Claudius is happy to hear that

Old Norway gave his nephew money and soldiers to fight in Poland instead of attacking Denmark. Old Norway asks if Fortinbras and his armies can pass through Denmark on the way.

Hamlet expresses his doubts about the ghost and comes up with a plan to see if Claudius really killed his father.

Act II Quotes “My uncle-father and aunt-

mother are deceived” (II.ii.385)“I am mad north-northwest.

When the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw” (II.ii.388).

“Am I a coward?” (II.ii.578)"The play's the thing wherein I'll

catch the conscience of the King" (II.ii.612)

Act III summaryHamlet “To be or not to be”

speech. We only go on living because we are afraid of what comes after death.

Claudius and Polonius spy on Hamlet’s conversation with Ophelia.

Hamlet knows that Ophelia was part of the plot to spy on him and gets very angry. “Get thee to a nunnery.”

Act III SummaryThe play within the play. Hamlet

confirms the ghost’s story. Hamlet acts crazy and mean to

Ophelia, calls out Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and pledges to kill Claudius as soon as he sees his mother.

Hamlet pledges to “Speak daggers to her but use none” concerning his mother.

Act III summaryHamlet kills Polonius behind he

arras hoping it was the King. The ghost appears “his tardy son

to chide” and tells Hamlet to help his mother.

Hamlet tells his mother to stay away from Claudius.

Quotes Act III (slide 1)"To sleep, perchance to dream. Aye, there's the

rub"(III.i.73)

“Conscience does make cowards of us all” (III.i.91)

“O woe is me To have seen what I have seen, See what I see!” (III.ii.170)

 

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks” (III.ii.94)

Quotes Act III (slide 2)“do you think I am easier to be

played on than a pipe?” (III.ii.).“I will speak daggers to her, but use

none”(III.ii.429).“My words fly up, my thoughts

remain below;Words without thoughts never to heaven go” (III.iii.100)

“These words like daggers enter mine ears” (III.iv.400)

Three Fatherless Sons seek revenge:

Hamlet - thought over action

Fortinbras - revenge through honorable battle

Laertes - impulsively seeks revenge by any means

Quotes Act IV“O heavy deed! It had been so with us,

had we been there; his liberty is full of threats to us all” (IV, i).

“O, from this time forth, My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!” (IV, iv)

“So full of artless jealousy is guilt, It spills itself in fearing to be spilt” (IV,

v).

Quotes Act IV (slide 2)“And where th’ offense is, let the

great ax fall (IV.v.243).

“Too much of water hast thou poor Ophelia. And therefore I forbid my tears”

(IV.vii.211.)

Quotes Act V This is, I, Hamlet the Dane!

“There is a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them as we will,--“(V,ii) 

“…we defy augury: there’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ‘tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: readiness is all” (V, ii).

“Goodnight sweet prince: And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest” (V, ii).