| Horatio | Close friend to Hamlet; last nobleman in Denmark; studied with the prince at the university in Wittenberg;loyal and helpful to Hamlet;After Hamlet’s death, Horatio remains alive to tell Hamlet’s story |
| Marcellus and Bernardo | The officers who first see the ghost;summon Horatio to witness it;Marcellus is present when Hamlet first sees ghost |
| The Ghost | spirit of Hamlet’s recently dead father; claims to have been murdered by Claudius;calls upon Hamlet to avenge him; not certain whether the ghost is what it appears to be, or whether it is something else;Hamlet believes the ghost might be a devil sent to deceive him and tempt him into murder |
| Cornelius and Voltemand | Claudius sends them to Norway to persuade the king to prevent Fortinbras from attacking. |
| Laertes | son of Polonius and brother of Ophelia; spends much of the play in France;Passionate and quick to action, Laertes is clearly a foil for the reflective Hamlet; one to kill hamlet with the poison on his sword |
| Hamlet | The Prince of Denmark, the title character, and the protagonist; 30 yrs old; son of Queen Gertrude and the late King Hamlet, and the nephew of the present king, Claudius; melancholy, bitter, and cynical, full of hatred for his uncle’s scheming and disgust for his mother’s sexuality; foil to character Laertes, uses reason and logic to make decisions and plot;studied at the University of Wittenberg; kills Polonius although believes he has killed Claudius; falls to his demise by being cut by sword of poison |
| Ophelia | daughter of Polonius and sister of Laertes; young girl, who obeys her father and her brother, Laertes. Dependent on men to tell her how to behave; gives in to Polonius’s schemes to spy on Hamlet; false into the trap of madness and insanity singing songs about flowers; drowns in the river amid the flower garlands she had gathered |
| Claudius | The King of Denmark, Hamlet’s uncle, and the play’s antagonist. The villain of the play; driven by his sexual appetites and his lust for power; shows signs of guilt and human feeling—his love for Gertrude; he is outed during the play of “the Murder of Gonzaga”; his guilt takes over but he would rather live with it for the crown and wife; tries to kill Hamlet by sending him to ENgland; is forced to drink his own poisonous drink and dies |
| Gertrude | The Queen of Denmark, Hamlet’s mother, recently married to Claudius;loves Hamlet deeply, but she is a shallow, weak woman who seeks affection and status; dependent upon a man to make decisions; is killed by drinking the poisonous wine destined to kill Hamlet |
| Polonius | the father of Laertes and Ophelia; The Lord Chamberlain of Claudius’s court; believes that Ophelia is the reason behind Hamlets madness; uses it to improve social status; works along side Claudius to “help” Hamlet; is killed by Hamlet behind tapestry |
| Osric | courtier who summons Hamlet to his duel with Laertes |
| Rosencrantz and Guildenstern | courtiers, former friends of Hamlet from Wittenberg; used by Claudius and Gertrude to spy on Hamlet; Hamlet calls Rosencrantz a sponge because he was spying; killed on the way to go to England with Hamlet |
| Francisco | A soldier and guardsman at Elsinore. |
| Reynaldo | polonius’s servant, who is sent to France by Polonius to check up on and spy on Laertes |
| Fortinbras | Prince of Norway, whose father the king was king by the former king of Denmark, King Hamlet; wishes to attack Denmark to avenge his father’s honor, making him another foil for Prince Hamlet |
Hamlet Character
August 24, 2019