Hamlet Major Works Data Sheet
Title: Hamlet
Author: William Shakespeare
Author’s birth________________ Author’s death__________________
Date of Production________
Historical information: from the time period that has an impact on the work; also, the text’s impact on literatures and cultures since its initial production.
Plot summary: Provide a bulleted list of the 10 most important events in Hamlet – state why these events are significant
1. Hamlet's father dies. This sets the course of events in motion, and creates Hamlet as we know him in the play: melancholy, angry, sad, and negative.
2. Hamlet meets the ghost of his father and learns that he was murdered. This gives Hamlet motivation as the tragic hero: he has a mission now. When he learns this he is set on his quest, and he gains new attributes: bitterness, vengefulness, and hate.
3. Hamlet kind of assaults Ophelia offstage, and causes her to go to her father, who starts a wicked chain of events by telling her to refuse Hamlet. It really only makes Hamlet somewhat crazier. It ends in Polonius's death.
4. The players put on the play that Hamlet has instructed them to act. When Claudius leaves during the play, Hamlet gains proof that he is guilty of murdering the king and gains conviction to take revenge.
5. While Claudius is praying, Hamlet considers killing him, but refrains, lest Claudius go to heaven. The audience feels a great sigh of relief and disappointment because Hamlet could have killed Claudius the "proper" way, but doesn't know any better to.
6. While speaking to his mother, Hamlet accidentally kills Polonius as he eavesdrops on them. This sets the stage for Hamlet's final duel with Laertes, and also marks Hamlet's going over the edge. It is the "last straw."
7. Hamlet meets Fortinbras on his way to conquer Denmark. This shows the events flowing under the surface of the main play; while treason goes on inside the castle, unknown to the royal family, treason makes its way in from outside the castle as well.
8. Ophelia goes mad, and hands out fake flowers to all the members of the court that have strangely spot-on meanings, then kills herself. Her death is questionable, and she seems to know more about the goings-on than we can tell. (Cont'd next page)
Hamlet took place during the last year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth the first, 1601. As she was in poor health, Hamlet may be a call for stronger government, and as there was no heir to the throne, a commentary on traditional rulers. Also, England had just won a battle with Spain, which may have cause Shakespeare to write a play to warn England of the dangers of war.
9. Hamlet returns boldly to Denmark, and Claudius lures him into a battle in which he and Laertes scheme to kill Hamlet. This is important because Hamlet's pride and overly-large passion drive makes him unable to see clearly; he can't refuse.
10. The queen drinks the poison by accident instead of Hamlet; Claudius tells her no, and Hamlet learns the truth. The entire plan is a shambles. When Fortinbras arrives, he sees that the royal family has killed itself off in a fit of treachery.
CHARACTER LIST
State the major characters and their significance to the play
1. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Hamlet is the heir to the throne. Prior to the start of the play, his father was murdered by Hamlet's uncle. Once he learns of his father's murder, Hamlet is consumed by grief and hate, and in his attempts to gather evidence and get revenge for Claudius's sin, he basically destroys the royal court's dynamics and causes the deaths of many people. He is clever, slightly mad, and is in the habit of using people to get what he wants, no matter what the cost is to them.
2. Claudius, new King of Denmark. Claudius murdered the prior king in order to inherit the throne and the queen, with whom many speculate he was having an affair with even before he became king. He seems as though he should be utterly despicable, but because of his constant struggle with repentance and his kindness towards Hamlet and Gertrude, he doesn't seem a though he deserves to be murdered as well. Hamlet, throughout the play, is constantly plotting against him; he is the object of Hamlet's malicious intent. He does not succeed in having Hamlet killed as planned in the end, however.
3. Ophelia. Ophelia is the daughter of the king's counselor. She is the object of Hamlet's devotion for most of the play; previous to the play's start, she and Hamlet are involved in a romantic relationship. However, due to her father's and brother's wrongful advice, she shuns Hamlet's advances, incensing and increasing his madness. Ophelia acts as a kind of scapegoat throughout the play. She is used by Hamlet as a plaything, is used as a puppet by her father and the king, and in the end is driven mad by the death of her father. The imaginary flowers she gives in one scene suggest that she knew more about the goings-on of the royal family's trysts, and her death is the subject of much skepticism--was it really a suicide?
4. Laertes: Laertes is Ophelia's brother. He is sometime a rival to Hamlet as well. At the start of the play, Laertes is a rowdy man who engages in some questionable behavior. Later he becomes incensed by the murder of his father and in revenge agrees to try and murder Hamlet with the king. He is somewhat a parallel to Hamlet in that he reforms at the end of the play, and that they are bitter rivals for the dead Ophelia's love. He causes Hamlet a certain amount of jealousy prior to their standoff.
5. Gertrude, Queen of Denmark. Gertrude is Hamlet’s mother, and the newly made wife of Claudius. Within the play she is a loving mother to Hamlet, and caring towards Ophelia, but her actions are questionable: did she partake in the murder of the old king? Why is she so suddenly married afterwards? What does she know about Ophelia’s death? Hamlet must ask himself these questions in the meantime. Gertrude is the cause of much of his distress; for to Hamlet, it seems as though Gertrude has married for lust, and seems to have no recollection of his father’s kindness and loving ways. He is tormented by how to punish her for her ways until the ghost of the old King appears to him and tells him to let “Heaven” deal with her.
QUOTES
Choose the 10 most memorable quotes from the play; provide the quote and the speaker; state the significance of each quote
1. “Why, what should be the fear? I do not set my life in a pin’s fee, And for my soul—what can it do to that, Being a thing immortal as itself? It waves me forth again. I’ll follow it.” --Hamlet. This quote shows Hamlet’s readiness to forfeit his own life in pursuit of his father; it shows how great his grieving is, that he would follow a possible hallucination or demon without any reservations. It shows Hamlet’s belief in the afterlife, and that even if harm came to him, it would not damage his spirit. He cares nothing for his life.
2. “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”--Marcellus. This quote has tidings of misfortune; it’s an allusion to the trouble about to come to the royal family. Bad things are about to happen, and have already happened; treason and lust and madness are afoot. If spirits of the dead king are about, Marcellus seems to say, then something really terrible is about to go down. He’s superstitious.
3. “My tables!—Meet it is I set it down That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain. At least I’m sure it may be so in Denmark.”--Hamlet. This quote shows Hamlet’s newfound distrust of the world; or so, at least he says, Denmark. This is the start of his madness and his cynical ways; from here he trusts nobody, as it seems that all the people he knew and loved in Denmark are traitors.
4. “My lord, as I was sewing in my closet, Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced; No hat upon his head; his stockings fouled, Ungartered, and down-gyvèd to his ankle; Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other; And with a look so piteous in purport As if he had been loosèd out of hell To speak of horrors—he comes before me.” --Ophelia. This anecdote by Ophelia is the first example of madness we see in Hamlet. Hamlet, in barging into Ophelia’s room in the half-nude, has done a horrible thing: it is unclean to be in such a way in front of a lady. It shows how he is tormented by visions of his father and his desire for revenge.
5. “You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal—except my life, except my life, except my life.”--Hamlet. This quote marks Hamlet’s descent into suicidal tendencies. In the scene where he speaks this quote, he is toying with Polonius. In a way, he speaks in order to confuse the old man, but the words are also chillingly true, as he later demonstrates. Hamlet is becoming more and more “mad.”
6. “For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. There’s the respect That makes calamity of so long life.” --Hamlet. In this quote, we learn the reason for Hamlet’s not committing suicide; he fears what comes after death. He says that no one knows what lies beyond the grave, and so it makes cowards afraid, and makes them endure their suffering out of cowardice.
7. “To draw apart the body he hath killed, O'er whom his very madness, like some ore Among a mineral of metals base, Shows itself pure. He weeps for what is done.”--Gertrude. In this quote, Gertrude is the epitome of maternal fondness: she endeavors to see the good in Hamlet. After he has killed Polonius, even so, she still looks for goodness in him. She may be blind, or Hamlet may not yet be completely lost. Either way, the king does not pay heed to her saying so, because later he sends Hamlet to be executed. Perhaps Gertrude is misinterpreting his actions.
8. “Quoth she, “Before you tumbled me, You promised me to wed.” He answers, “So would I ha' done, by yonder sun, An thou hadst not come to my bed.” --Ophelia. These words are spoken by Ophelia in her madness. They allude to Hamlet’s betraying her, and to her father and brother for causing to her the loss of her love. Hamlet, I believe, was driven away from Ophelia by her rejection of him on her father’s behalf. She was one very true thing to him, and then she wasn’t. And in return, he ruined her, in many ways. One response to such is her insanity, as portrayed here.
9. “Not one now to mock your own grinning? Quite chapfallen? Now get you to my lady’s chamber and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favor she must come. Make her laugh at that.”—Hamlet. Hamlet says this when speaking to the skull of Yorick in the graveyard. He says this prior to his speech about emperors returning to the dust and ending as corks; essentially, he is making a remark on how everybody meets the same end in the earth. What he does not remark on, is what end people will meet in the afterlife. Perhaps he thinks not all of those endings are the same.
10. “Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly— And praised be rashness for it: let us know Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well When our deep plots do pall, and that should teach us There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.”--Hamlet. This quote alludes to Hamlet’s own passion; how he acts hastily in the face of extreme stress and emotion, which often gets him into a lot of trouble. He says that sometimes passion serves people well (though I have yet to see passion serve Hamlet well in this play) and thank goodness a higher being is always looking out for us. Hamlet does not have a higher being to guide him, save for the ghost of his father; in the end this does not keep him from a bitter death. It does serve justice, however, and in that sense he is satisfied by this quote.
THESIS STATEMENT
Use this page and any additional paper to complete the thesis assignment
The thesis assignment—this assignment is designed to give you a rough outline for writing essays. The more thoroughly you complete the thesis assignment, the better your essays will be.
1. Come up with a theme for the work by following this 3 step process:
a. make a list of topics—one word answers to the question, “What is this
work about?”
a. Revenge
b. Deceit
c. Selfishness
d. Fate
b. Pick two or three topics and ask, “What does the work say about this topic?” The answer will be a theme of the work.
a. Revenge. All of the events in Hamlet are caused by the selfishness of the main characters. There is no action that is not motivated by 1. Claudius’s murder of the old king in order to gain his throne and queen, with no thought to the consequences, or 2. Hamlet’s pursuing of revenge against Claudius, in which he uses and abuses many minor characters less important than he in order to achieve this.
c. Work the theme into a thesis statement by filling in the blanks with the appropriate information.
In the novel (title) by (author), the (literary devices), suggest (theme).
In the novel Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the use of extended metaphors, deceitful language, and mirror-like images suggest that all of the characters are driven by selfish desire and greed.
2. Find specific evidence (quotes) which show where you got your ideas. Generally, you’ll need at least two quotes from the beginning, middle and end of the work.
Explain how each quote supports your theme.
VOCABULARY LOG
For each act, list and define 20 words and/or phrases
THEMES AND MOTIFS
Give three examples from the play of the following:
1) Appearance vs. reality (general) Hypocrisy, Painting and Harlotry
2) True Madness vs. Feigned Madness
3) Mirrors or glass (reflections)
4) Rotting and corruption, Disease
5) Flowers and weeds
6) Spying
7) Disease
8) Traps or things that catch and hold. These may be physical, or they can be traps of loyalty, love, duty, etc.
9) Fate vs. Free Will
10) Nature (especially the nature of humans)
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