He announces that the next night they will hear The Murder of Gonzago performed, with an additional short speech that he will write himself. Hamlet leaves Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and now stands alone in the room. He immediately begins cursing himself, bitterly commenting that the player who gave the speech was able to summon a depth of feeling and expression for long-dead figures who mean nothing to him, while Hamlet is unable to take action even with his far more powerful motives.
If Hamlet is merely pretending to be mad, as he suggests, he does almost too good a job of it. However, the acute and cutting observations he makes while supposedly mad support the view that he is only pretending.
But he is certainly confused and upset, and his confusion translates into an extraordinarily intense state of mind suggestive of madness. These separate plot developments take place in the same location and occur in rapid succession, allowing the audience to compare and contrast their thematic elements.
We have already seen the developing contrast between Hamlet and Laertes. The section involving the Norwegian ambassadors develops another important contrast, this time between Hamlet and Fortinbras. Like Hamlet, Fortinbras is the grieving son of a dead king, a prince whose uncle inherited the throne in his place.
But where Hamlet has sunk into despair, contemplation, and indecision, Fortinbras has devoted himself to the pursuit of revenge. This contrast will be explored much more thoroughly later in the play. This at least suggests the possibility that the King of Norway is trying to trick Claudius into allowing a hostile army into his country.
It is notable that Claudius appears indifferent to the fact that a powerful enemy will be riding through his country with a large army in tow.
The arrival of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two of the most enigmatic figures in Hamlet, is another important development. These two characters are manipulated by all of the members of the royal family and seem to exist in a state of fear that they will offend the wrong person or give away the wrong secret at the wrong time. One of the strangest qualities of the two men is their extraordinary similarity. In fact, Shakespeare leaves Rosencrantz and Guildenstern almost entirely undifferentiated from one another.
What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! This conversation, closely watched by Claudius and Polonius, is, in fact, a test. Does Hamlet mean what he says to Ophelia? There are several problems with concluding that Hamlet says the opposite of what he means in order to appear crazy. For one thing, if he really does love her, this is unnecessarily self-destructive behavior. His professions of former love make him appear fickle, or emotionally withdrawn, rather than crazy.
Is Hamlet really crazy or just pretending? But his behavior toward Ophelia is both self-destructive and fraught with emotional intensity.
Moreover, his bitterness against Ophelia, and against women in general, resonates with his general discontentedness about the state of the world, the same discontentedness that he expresses when he thinks no one is watching.
There is a passionate intensity to his unstable behavior that keeps us from viewing it as fake. Perhaps it is worthwhile to ask this question: if a person in a rational state of mind decides to act as if he is crazy, to abuse the people around him regardless of whether he loves those people or hates them, and to give free expression to all of his most antisocial thoughts, when he starts to carry those actions out, will it even be possible to say at what point he stops pretending to be crazy and starts actually being crazy?
Ace your assignments with our guide to Hamlet! SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook. Is the Ghost real? They go to England, to show respect to the king. What does Claudius find nearly impossible to do? What does Polonius urge the Queen to do? Under what misapprehension does Hamlet slay Polonius?
Why does the Ghost appear to Hamlet again? Hamlet needs to get it together. What does Hamlet ask of his mother? To repent of her sins. Hamlet Flashcards. Hamlet crossword list August 26,
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