Hamlet Act 1 best points for every scene (A level english) + critics
Hamlet : watch play + read and make notes +read the study guide
Scene 1
“Who’s there” Question ironic implications (on going questions about ghost)
Reflects rest of play
“starting like a guilty thing” signals ambiguous nature”
Referred to as “it” “Thing”
Urgent and economical use of colloquial conversation, eerie tense atmosphere
Verse does not flow
Broken rhymes generate unease, apphrension feelings
“sick at heart” - mental disease throughtout whole play
Threat of invasion, coldness, skepticism
Horatio scholar, sceptic, christian, moral torchstone, no doubt ghost “something more than fantasy”Rational scholar, Differential to ghost“starting like a guilty things signals ambiguous nature”Refered to as “it” “Thing”Refelcts rest of the play
Scene 2
Claudius to laertes:
Deal with threat of invasion and Underline power: (scene contrast to previous night time and note how different old hamlet and Claudius look)
Royal we
Discretion overcome natural grief
Fails:
“with mirth in funeral and dirge in marriage” - inappropriately confused
Where intended reasonableness from antithetical statements “in equal scale weighing delight and dole”
“wisest sorrow” “defeated joy” - hollow phrases alert theatre to his hipocrasy
Speech seems like oily art managed to get court to “have freely gone with this affair along”
Overly grateful tone: “heartily farewell” (a gift not quivering subservience)
Questions laertes, but leaves no time to repsond
Repeats laertes name flattering him, laertes plays along, therefore is rewarded.
Claudius to hamlet:
Audinece would by the name of the play already be thinking hamlet has more power
“a little more than kin and less than kind”
More than kin (nephew and stepson) less than kind – thinks king is less than kindly and also not the same breed
Memory for Claudius of “dear bother” is “green” yet doesn’t express any guilt
Hamlet unlike laertes interrupts with staccato one liners
Silences hamlet with long sentences that run on (hendiadys “sweet and commendable”
Repetition of “fault” and heavenly/sublime language semantic field juxtapose “earth” nature” “heaven”
Claudius presents hamlets morning as “absurd”, but the audience knows it is natural
“seems madam, nay it is, I know not seems”, she when “like niobe all tears” “actions that a man might play”
Claudius seems to be acting, ignoring hamlet saying “this gentle and unforced accord” “Denmark drinks today... predicts whether – over confident braggart
(soliloquy essay plan)
Corruption
Suicide, inner turmoil
Appearance vs reality (he real w/ pauses, unreaheased “heaven... must I remember”, olld h vs c
Feels bound to suffer in silence
Scene 3
Themes explored in domestic setting status, demise, family, corruption, appearance vs reality
Away from panic of ghosts and high soceity to bonds of blood, yet from them we stilll learn danger and distrust in denmark
Laertes undermines Hamlet:
Lexical field of growth “bulks” and “grows” to suggest youth and resulting immaturity, in attempt to underline hamlets “sweet’ words are not to be trusted
Emphasises the transitory nature of his emotions
Reinforced by “soil” - suggests impurity or corruption, we can infer laertes does not believe hamlet has ophelia’s best interests in mind
Importance of reputation shown by laertes in repeated references to royalty “his greatness weighed” - how laertes measures status – hyper fixation
Polonius to ophelia:
“he hath my lord, of late made many tenders of his affection to me” (not a surprise):”tis told” “tis put on me” - passive voice – suggests informants
“most free and bounteous” - adjective phrase out of pace in a state where threat of invasion, spying corruption ever present clear juxtaposition, out of place in appropriate
Right to be cautious, after finding truth claudius: “green girl” “baby” immature, naïve also green connotations (sick) with “blood that burns”
Understand why ophelia cautious then Ophelia calls father “my lord” - underlines relationships in denmark strained anti personal affairs (understand why (spying))
Focus on status by polonius an infatuation more than just sensible sees her as “chaste treasure” who due ot lack of “true pay” has lost its gold, hamlet calls him a “fishmonger”
Fustration in “somewhat scanter of uour maiden presnece” (anti-personal) - sibilance spitting words with disgust
Maddening to him she is only one who wont “come your ways” and be focused on status like rest of fam
Believes hamlets affections to be “blazes”, “fashion”, rejects “holy vows of heaven” (prejeudices of old) which makes Ophelia “tender” (connotations surpisingly accurate)
“i shall obey my lord “ fatalsim , this seems inevitable to her?
Scene 4
Best points:
Audience Already suspect the ghost will arrive
Tense half line “what hour now” - lost track of time, been here while therefore something soon to happen, anticipation builds
Repeated ‘s’ “swaggering” “drains his draughts” - suggest the kings slurred speech – drunk/ actions not thought through so they flow together
“Bray out” - loud, lack of self respect/ respect for Denmark
Alliteration and rhyme and harsh sounds lexical field suggest vulgarity and bestiality
Hamlet empathises with his people who “clepe us drunkards” - views Danish reputation poorly
Ghost appears confusing all time “angels and ministers of grace defend us” - reasonable now considering cosmic scale, time living and dead, heaven hell earth
Antithesis, thinking rationality “spirit of health, or goblin damned,” ethical dilemma
Hamlet shift from scholar to philosophical tragic hero
Something “o’ergrows” “forts of reason” (corruption) in the country – from use of natural language “soil” “vicious mole of nature” suggests this problem extends beyond the ghost and supernatural to real world
Scene 5
Desire to listen and understand seen in short stichomythia “I will”
Lexical field of fire ghost uses to show He has been “burnt”
Full of contradictions, previously said he couldn’t describe purgatory
Seems extreme
Builds up story with warning “freeze thy blood” builds anticipation for tale he will “unfold”
Murder and revenge introduced, Repetition of “foul”
Mad build up contrasts with hamlet “sweep to my revenge” with “wings as swift as meditation” (soft language and connotations vs “List hamlet o list”
Renaissance scholar vs wartime hero
Frustrates ghost who wants action against “serpents”
Hamlet's response to “wild and whirring words” hardly surprising , ghost poisons him in this way
Says those who sin are punished in afterlife “o horrible” yet asks Hamlet to get revenge – anti Christian will surely lead him to hell
Asks him to get rid of “damned incest” but also says “leave her to heaven”
Critics / themes:
Fancis Bacon – Revenge “a kind of wild justice”
Laertes and fortnibrass, simple code of honour, family pride
Madness can be defined as “being a minority of one”
“hamlet does not play the madman, he plays the fool, teling truths no one wants to hear”
“it is at moments of intense excitement that Hamlet’s behaviour is least comprehisble”
“Ophelia and Gertrude puzzling extremly undeveloped creations” (contrast to shakespeares other work)
A.C.bradley - women do not get lines as there was not time, the play was to long
T.S>elliot play “dealing with the effects of a mothers guilt upon her son
A.C.bradley - women do not get lines as there was not time, the play was to long
g. wilson knight – hamlet is “feared by those around him”
“For many feminist critics, the madwomen is a heroine”