Hamlet Reading Questions: Act III

Act III
1. Does Hamlet behave differently toward Ophelia than Polonius and Laertes? How does he treat her during the “Mousetrap” play that the players perform?
Hamlet does behave differently towards Ophelia. He seems sort of disrespectful and playful at the same time with Ophelia. I believe he perhaps still has feelings for her but is in a conflict with his new beliefs about women.

2. What is the point of the play Hamlet calls “The Mousetrap” (The Murder of Gonzago)? What are the differences between this version of a king’s murder and that which we have been told of in Hamlet?
The point of the play that was preformed was to unmask Claudius. Hamlet wanted to prove what the ghost said was right by targeting Claudius’s conscience. The characters are obviously different. There is also a lengthy conversation between the Queen and the King that leads to the break of a love promise to the king after his death. In the play, we get inside thoughts of what Hamlet believes that everyone was thinking that night of his father’s death.

3. At the end of 3.2, Hamlet “could drink hot blood” (360) as he goes off to visit his mother. On the way, he finds the King in prayer. Why does he not slay him in this moment (3.3.77 ff.)?
He doesn’t kill him at that moment because he feels like he should catch him when he is committing a sin not when he is trying to pray for forgiveness of his sins.

4. What is the intended purpose of Hamlet’s visit to his mother’s chamber? How does he turn the tables on her? What instructions does he give to her?

He turns the tables on her by instead of answering her questions he works around them and directs them to her. He starts off by sugar coding, he doesn’t directly tell her of what she thinks of him but she eventually catches on. Before Hamlet went to speak to his mother, he was determined that he was going to hurt her emotionally because he would never kill her, his words will be as hurtful as a dagger.

He instructs his mother to be a pure woman or at least pretend and try to be. He tells her not to sleep with the King anymore and to fall for his temptations.

5. What happens to Polonius during the conversation between Hamlet and Gertrude? Who else barges in on their conversation?

Polonius is killed accidentally by Hamlet. He was stabbed because he spoke and Hamlet thought and hoped it was Claudius but it wasn’t. However. Hamlet didn’t care, he said that was what he deserved for being a nosey man.

6. At the end of act 3, Hamlet reminds his mother that he has been sent on a foreign mission by the King (this resolution comes in 3.1) Where is he going? Why does Hamlet think he is being sent away?

The King is sending him to England to try and get money they own them ( diplomatic business).

Hamlet thinks he is being sent away because the King wants to get rid of him and therefore has sent his two “friends” with him to do the job.

Hamlet Reading Questions: Act 2

Act II
1. What is Polonius employing Reynaldo to do? What instructions does he give to him?

He has told Reynaldo to give his son, Laertes money and letters. He has also employed him to ask around and find out what his son has been up to in Paris. He wants to know if there are any rumors and make sure that they are the truth or lies. He simply wants to know what his son is doing and if he really is doing music.

2. What report of Hamlet’s behavior does Ophelia give to Polonius in 2.1? What
specifically does she tell him about how he was acting? What other words are used to describe Hamlet’s behavior (especially his actions) throughout these acts? When Hamlet appears in 2.2, how would you characterize his speech?

Ophelia tells her father that she just had a scare. She told him that she was in her room sewing when Hamlet came in with no hat on his head, his shirt unbuttoned, and his stockings dirty, undone, and down around his ankles. His face looked so “out of sorts” like if he came back from hell and then he came up to her and grabbed her by the waist and held her hard. He then backed away and just starred at her for a long time. Then after a while he looked at her up and down 3 times and sighed as if it was his last breath and he left without taking his eyes off of her.

 His actions seem strange, especially in this scene that Ophelia described. Hamlet didn’t say a word…he seems quite and reserved throughout all his actions and he mostly talks to himself about things. He acts as if everything he does will be the last thing he does.

In 2.2, Hamlet talks back to Polonius in a smart way; he says things that can interpreted in two ways. He makes it seem to Polonius that he is talking about his and his daughter.

3. What news does King Claudius receive from Norway in 2.2? What is the status of the impending invasion from act 1?
News: The Old King sent out messengers to stop his nephew’s war preparations to what they thought were to Poland but it was really directed to Denmark. He ordered Fortinbras’s arrest. “Fortinbras swore to never threaten Denmark again.” The old King was so happy his nephew swore to do such a thing that he gave him gold coins and permission to lead his soldiers into Poland but they need permission from Claudius to pass through Denmark.

In Act 1, Young Fortinbras was so upset that Old King Hamlet killed his father, so he wanted revenge.  

4. What speech does Hamlet ask the Player to perform in 2.2? What event in history/literature is being recounted in this speech? Who is Pyrrhus?  

He asks him to preform The Aeneid. This is a Roman poet epic that was written by Virgil between 29 and 19 B.C.

Pyrrhus is the son of Achilles. Pyrrhus, also called Neoptolemus, appears in Aeneas’s account of the siege of Troy as the brutal murderer of Priam and Priam’s sons.

5. In his second soliloquy (“O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I”), what is Hamlet’s response to the player’s speech? What aspect of the Player’s speech does he specifically comment on?

He feels bad that he made the player preform the speech because he saw how overwhelmed he was that the player started to cry. Hamlet comments specifically in the part of the speech were he talks about murder because he tries to relate it to his father’s murder and Claudius.

Reading Questions: Act 1; Scenes 3-5

8. What advice do both Laertes and Polonius give to Ophelia?
They tell her to be careful with Hamlet. They tell her that he is fooling her with all the love things he tells her and that she shouldn’t fall for his “temptations”. They tell her that he is playing with her feelings and that all he wants is her (sexually) and then he will leave. They warn her to stay away from him.

9. What is particularly “foul, strange, and unnatural” about King Hamlet I’s death? (see 1.5)
-Hamlet’s uncle Claudius has lied about the way the King died, saying that a snake had bit him but he killed him. He poisoned him in his ear. He didn’t only kill him but he took his wife from him, seducing her. 

10. What does Hamlet write down after seeing the ghost? Where does he write it?
Hamlet writes down in a notebook what the ghost (his father) has told him. His father’s commandment/ his revenge and what he heard that night.

11. To what oath does Hamlet make Horatio and Marcellus swear?

They swear to God but Hamlet makes them also to his sword.

Hamlet Questions: Act 1, Scenes 1-2

Act I
1. What is the Ghost wearing when he come on stage? When before, according to Horatio, had he been seen wearing it?

He is wearing the exact same armor the King was when he fought the King of Norway.

2. Marcellus asks someone to “tell me…/Why this same strict and most observant watch/ So nightly toils the subject of the land…” What is the answer?
They are protecting Denmark from the Young King Fortinbras because he is trying to take back the lands his dad lost from the battle the elder King Hamlet had with the elder King Fortinbras.

3. What story from the past does Horatio relate?
He relates it to Julius Caesar and how he was assassinated and how the “corpse rose out of their graves and ran through the streets of Rome speaking gibberish”.

4. What makes the ghost disappear?
The rooster.

5. Note all of the different matters of court business that Claudius attends to at the opening of 1.2. How does he try to comfort Hamlet? Does it work?
He tries to comfort Hamlet buy saying that his dad like everyone’s dad eventually dies but that he (Claudius) “loves him” just like any father would love his son. He also tells him that he is also next to obtaining the throne, to be king. He also tries to tell him that he is his son and that he cares for him.

6. In Hamlet’s first soliloquy (“O that this too too solid flesh would melt…”), what does he tell the audience is so upsetting to him?
He is so upset about his current situation, about his mom marrying his uncle right after his dad died. He wants to commit suicide.  

7. “Foul deeds will rise,/ Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes” (~1.2.256-­‐7) What does Hamlet mean by this?
Hamlet is trying to say that the bad things that have been done will soon come to light (be discovered) no matter how hard people try to hide them.