| Consider the Gravedigger’s scene (5.1.1-223): Why is Hamlet unsettled by the Gravedigger’s singing? | -“has this fellow no feeling of his business? he sings in grave-making.”: supposed to be a gloomy dark job bc his job deals with dead people but he is singing-“that skull had a tongue in it and could sing once”: the dead body the gravedigger dug up was once a human and could sing just like the gravedigger is |
| Consider the Gravedigger’s scene (5.1.1-223): What does Hamlet realize while he ponders the skull of Yorick? | -used to be someone with memories but now just a dead body/nothing-confronting death as he takes the skull-“he hath bore me on his back a thousand times, and now how abhorred in my imagination it is!” |
| Consider the Gravedigger’s scene (5.1.1-223): What is the significance of this scene? | -conclusion about life/death: everyone is the same in death, turns into nothing and all look the safe, so what is most important is making a legacy when you live, what you did while alive is most important-“alexander died, alexander was buried, alexander returners to dust”: referring to alexander the great, even someone with so much power during life turns into nothing after death, the chain of being dissolves in death |
| Consider the scene of Ophelia’s burial (5.1.224-319): What does Hamlet observe about the funeral procession before he knows the identity of the person to be buried? | -“here comes the king, the queen, the courtiers. who is this they follow? and with such maimed rites? this doth betoken the corse they follow did with desperate hand ford its own life”: he can tell the person to be buried is of higher social class as the king and queen are there but because it is not as grand he can predict that the cause of death was suicide |
| Consider the scene of Ophelia’s burial (5.1.224-319): What feelings do Laertes, Gertrude, and Hamlet reveal about Ophelia? | -laertes: “lay her i’ th’ earth, and from her fair and unpolluted flesh may violets spring”-gertrude: “sweets to the sweet, farewell! i hoped thou shouldst have been my hamlet’s wife”: liked ophelia and wanted her to marry hamlet-hamlet: “i loved ophelia. forty thousand brothers could not with all their quantity of love make up my sum” |
| Consider the scene of Ophelia’s burial (5.1.224-319): How does Hamlet feel about Laertes? | -“that is laertes, a very nobel youth. mark”: admires laertes aside from their family issues |
| Consider Hamlet’s conversation with Horatio (5.2.1-90): What role does he assign to heaven in the lives of individuals? | -“there’s a divinity that shapes our ends”: determines the outcome of our actions, fate |
| Consider Hamlet’s conversation with Horatio (5.2.1-90): Why doesn’t Hamlet feel remorse for arranging the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? | -“they are not near my conscience. their defeat does by their own insinuation grow.”: he was betrayed by them, they brought it upon themselves |
| Consider Hamlet’s conversation with Horatio (5.2.1-90): What comment does Horatio make about Claudius? | -“why, what a king is this!”: even a scholar is acknowledging how horrible a king claudius is |
| Consider Hamlet’s conversation with Horatio (5.2.1-90): How does Hamlet summarize all the wrongs that Claudius has done him? | -“he hath killed my king, whored my mother, popped in between th’ election and my hopes, thrown out his angle for my proper life, and with such cozenage” |
| What conclusion does Hamlet reach about the nature of death right before the sword-fighting scene? | “we defy augury. there is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. if it be ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it come. the readiness is all.”: you don’t know when you will die so you should life life ready for death |
| How is Laertes a foil to Hamlet? | -“if your mind dislike anything, obey it.”-tries to keep hamlet on the right path, gives him advice as a scholar and trustworthy friend |
| When does Laertes realize that he has been used by Claudius? How does he assess his own death? | -“my lord, i’ll hit him now… [aside] and yet it is almost against my conscience.”: he starts to realize the king’s plan and realizes that he does not really want to kill hamlet |
| How does Claudius die? How is his death fitting? | -he dies after hamlet uses the envenomed sword to stab him and forces him to drink the poison, uses poison to kill claudius like claudius used poison to kill his own brother and to attempt to kill hamlet, dying by his own plan |
| What is Hamlet’s dying request of Horatio? | -“thous livest; report me and my cause aright to the unsatisfied.”: reveal the truth to everyone so hamlet can die with honor and peace |
| How/why does Fortinbras gain the kingdom of Denmark at the end of the play? | -“i do prophesy th’ election lights on fortinbras; he has my dying voice. so tell him, with th’ occurents, more and less, which have solicited-the rest is silence.”: hamlet turning the kingdom to fortinbras, better bc avoids war and they already are in chaos-strange bc fortinbras claims the right to the throne before horatio even brings it up-still shows respect to hamlet: “bear hamlet like a soldier to the stage, for he was likely, had he been put on, to have proved most royal” |
| Consider the significance of the play’s last line. How does it contrast with the opening line? | … |
hamlet is a big bully act 5
July 29, 2019