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uncertainty—Hamlet doesn’t just eign madness; he seems attimes to actually be crazy.
Related Historical Events:
Hamlet 
is in many ways a producto the Reormation, in which Protestants broke away rom theuntil-then dominant Catholic Church, as well as the skepticalhumanism o late Renaissance Northern Europe, whichheld that there were limits on human knowledge. Hamlet’sconstant anxiety about the dierence between appearanceand reality, as well as his concerns about and dicultieswith religion (the sinulness o suicide, the unairness thatkilling a murderer while the murderer is praying would resultin sending the murder to heaven) can be seen as directlyemerging rom the breaks in religion and thought brought onby the Reormation and Renaissance humanist thought.
Extra Credit
Shakespeare or Not?
There are some who believeShakespeare wasn’t educated enough to write the playsattributed to him. The most common anti-Shakespeare theoryis that Edward de Vere, the Earl o Oxord, wrote the plays andused Shakespeare as a ront man because aristocrats werenot supposed to write plays. Yet the evidence supportingShakespeare’s authorship ar outweighs any evidenceagainst. So until urther notice, Shakespeare is still the mostinfuential writer in the English language.
Background Info
hesitates to kill Claudius while Claudius is praying, otherswhen Hamlet kills Polonius, and still others when Hamletvows to ocus on revenge at the end o Act 4.
Protagonist:
Hamlet
Antagonists:
Claudius
Historical and Literary Context
When Written:
Between 1599-1601
Where Written:
England
When Published:
1603 (First Quarto), 1604 (Second Quarto).
Literary Period:
The Renaissance (1500-1660)
Related Literary Works:
Hamlet alls into the tradition o revenge tragedy, in which the central character’s quest orrevenge usually results in general tragedy. This traditionexisted rom Roman times (the Roman playwright Senecawas well known or writing revenge tragedies). The mostamous revenge tragedy o Shakespeare’s day beore Hamletwas Thomas Kyd’s
The Spanish Tragedy 
and some believethat Kyd wrote an earlier play o Hamlet, now lost, whichscholars call the
Ur-Hamlet 
. The story o Hamlet is based ona Danish revenge story rst recorded by Saxo Grammaticus inthe 1100s. In these stories, a Danish prince akes madness inorder to take revenge on his uncle, who had killed the prince’sather and married his mother. But Shakespeare modiedthis rather straightorward story and lled it with dread and
Author Bio
Full Name:
William Shakespeare
Date of Birth:
1564
Place of Birth:
Stratord-upon-Avon, England
Date of Death:
1616
Brief Life Story:
Shakespeare’s ather was a glove-maker,and Shakespeare received no more than a grammar schooleducation. He married Anne Hathaway in 1582, but let hisamily behind around 1590 and moved to London, wherehe became an actor and playwright. He was an immediatesuccess: Shakespeare soon became the most popularplaywright o the day as well as a part-owner o the GlobeTheater. His theater troupe was adopted by King James asthe King’s Men in 1603. Shakespeare retired as a rich andprominent man to Stratord-upon-Avon in 1613, and diedthree years later.
Key Facts
Full Title:
 
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark 
Genre:
Tragic drama; Revenge tragedy
Setting:
Denmark during the late middle ages (circa 1200),though characters in the play occasionally reerence thingsor events rom the Elizabethan Age (circa 1500).
Climax:
The climax o 
Hamlet 
is a subject o debate. Some sayit occurs when Hamlet kills Claudius, others when HamletA
ghost
resembling the recently deceased King o Denmarkstalks the ramparts o Elsinore, the royal castle. Terriedguardsmen convince a skeptical nobleman,
Horatio
, to watchwith them. When he sees the ghost, he decides they shouldtell
Hamlet
, the dead King’s son. Hamlet is also the nephewo the present King,
Claudius
, who not only assumed his deadbrother’s crown but also married his widow,
Gertrude
. Claudi-us seems an able King, easily handling the threat o the Norwe-gian Prince
Fortinbras
. But Hamlet is urious about Gertrude’smarriage to Claudius. Hamlet meets the ghost, which claims tobe the spirit o his ather, murdered by Claudius. Hamlet quicklyaccepts the ghost’s command to seek revenge.Yet Hamlet is uncertain i what the ghost said is true. Hedelays his revenge and begins to act hal-mad, contemplatesuicide, and becomes urious at all women. The Lord Chamber-lain,
Polonius
, concludes that Hamlet’s behavior comes romlovesickness or
Ophelia
, Polonius’s daughter. Claudius andGertrude summon two o Hamlet’s old riends,
Rosencrantz
 and
Guildenstern
, to nd out what’s wrong with him. As Polo-nius develops a plot to spy on a meeting between Hamlet andOphelia, Hamlet develops a plot o his own: to have a recentlyarrived troupe o actors put on a play that resembles Claudius’salleged murder o Old Hamlet, and watch Claudius’s reaction.Polonius and Claudius spy on the meeting between Oph-elia and Hamlet, during which Hamlet fies into a rage againstwomen and marriage. Claudius concludes Hamlet neither lovesOphelia nor is mad. Seeing Hamlet as a threat, he decides tosend him away. At the play that night, Claudius runs rom theroom during the scene o the murder, proving his guilt. Hamletgets his chance or revenge when, on the way to see Gertrude,he comes upon Claudius, alone and praying. But Hamlet holdso—i Claudius is praying as he dies then his soul might goto heaven. In Gertrude’s room, Hamlet berates his mother ormarrying Claudius so aggressively that she thinks he mightkill her. Polonius, who is spying on the meeting rom behind atapestry, calls or help. Hamlet thinks Polonius is Claudius, andkills him.Claiming that he wants to protect Hamlet rom punishmentor killing Polonius, Claudius sends Hamlet to England withRosencrantz and Guildenstern. But Claudius sends with thethree men a letter asking the King o England to execute Ham-let. Meanwhile, Polonius’ son,
Laertes
, returns to Denmarkrom France to get revenge or his ather’s death. Claudius con-vinces Laertes the death is Hamlet’s ault. When a pirate attackallows Hamlet to escape back to Denmark, Claudius comes upwith a new plot in which a supposedly riendly duel betweenHamlet and Laertes will actually be a trap, because Laertes’sblade will be poisoned. As a backup, Claudius will also poisonsome wine that he’ll give to Hamlet i he wins.Meanwhile, grie drives Ophelia insane, and she drowns inwhat seems to be a suicide. Hamlet arrives just as the uneralis taking place. He claims to love Ophelia and scufes withLaertes. Back at the castle, Hamlet tells Horatio he switchedthe letter sent to England: now Rosencrantz and Guildensternwill be executed. He also says he is ready to die, and agrees toparticipate in the encing match.During the match, Gertrude drinks to Hamlet’s successrom the poisoned glass o wine beore Claudius can stopher. Laertes then wounds Hamlet with the poisoned blade,but in the scufe they exchange swords and Hamlet woundsLaertes. Gertrude alls, saying the wine was poisoned, and dies.Laertes reveals Claudius’s treachery. Hamlet kills Claudius, andexchanges orgiveness with Laertes. Laertes dies. As Hamletdies, he hears the drums o Fortinbras’s army marching throughDenmark ater a battle with the Polish, and says Fortinbrasshould be the next King o Denmark. Fortinbras enters with theAmbassadors rom England, who announce that Rosencrantzand Guildenstern are dead. Horatio tells Hamlet’s story asHamlet’s body is taken ostage with the honors due a soldier.
Plot SummaryCharacters
Hamlet
— The prince o Denmark, son o 
Gertrude
, nephewo 
Claudius
, and heir to the throne. Hamlet is a deep thinker,ocusing on impossible to answer questions about religion,death, truth, reality, and the motivations o others. He evenobsessively contemplates the act that he obsessively con-templates. He loves
Ophelia
and his mother, but his mother’smarriage to Claudius makes him mistrust and even hate allwomen. He detests all orms o deception, yet plots andpretends to be insane. At times he even seems to
be
insane.Despite his obsessive thinking, he can act impulsively, as whenhe kills
Polonius
. Hamlet is an enigma, a man so complex evenhe doesn’t completely know himsel. In other words, he seemslike a real person—which has made Hamlet the most wellknown character in English literature.
Claudius
—
Hamlet
’s uncle, and
Gertrude
’s second hus-band. Power-hungry and lustul, Claudius murders his brother inorder to take the throne o Denmark and marry his wie. Clau-dius is a great talker and schemer. He easily charms the royalcourt into accepting his hasty marriage to his brother’s widow,and comes up with plot ater plot to protect his ill-gained power.He is the consummate politician, yet his hold on power is alwaysslightly tenuous. At various times he does show guilt or killinghis brother, and his love o Gertrude seems genuine.
Gertrude
—
Hamlet
’s mother. Ater Hamlet’s ather dies,Gertrude quickly marries Hamlet’s uncle,
Claudius
. Thoughshe is a good woman and loving mother, she is weak-willed andunable to control her personal passions. Whether because o lust, love, or a desire to maintain her status as queen, she mar-ries
Claudius
, though this is clearly a breach o proper morals.Though some critics have argued that Gertrude might havebeen involved in Claudius’s plot to kill Old Hamlet, evidencein the text suggests that she is unaware o and uninvolved inthe plot.
Polonius
— The Lord Chamberlain o Denmark, and theather o 
Laertes
and
Ophelia
, whom he loves deeply andwishes to protect, even to the point o spying on them. Po-lonius is pompous and long-winded, and has a propensity toscheme, but without
Hamlet
’s or
Claudius
’s skill. He is veryaware o his position and role, and is always careul to try to beon the good side o power.
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Hamlet 
 
Laertes
—
Polonius
’s son and
Ophelia
’s brother. Laertesis hotheaded and passionate, and loves his amily deeply. Asa man prone to action rather than thought who also seeks torevenge the death o his ather, he serves as a “double” to
Hamlet
, providing numerous points o comparison.
Ophelia
—
Polonius
’s daughter,
Laertes
’s sister, and
Ham-let
’s love. As a woman, Ophelia must obey the men aroundher and is orced by her ather rst to stop speaking to Hamletand then to help spy on him. Ophelia’s loyalty to her atherand resulting estrangement rom Hamlet ultimately causesher to lose her mind. Though Laertes and
Fortinbras
are thecharacters usually seen as Hamlet’s “doubles,” Ophelia unc-tions as a kind o emale double o Hamlet—mirroring Hamlet’shal-madness with her own ull-blown insanity, and takes hisobsession with suicide a step urther and actually commits it.
Horatio
— A university riend o 
Hamlet
’s at Wittenberg,Horatio becomes Hamlet’s condante in his eort to take re-venge against
Claudius
. Hamlet values Horatio’s sel-restraint:Horatio is the character in
Hamlet 
least moved by passion.
The Ghost
— The spirit that claims to be
Hamlet
’s deadather, orced to endure the res o Purgatory because hewas murdered by
Claudius
in his sleep without being able toask orgiveness or his sins. The Ghost orders Hamlet to getrevenge against Claudius, but spare
Gertrude
. Evidence inthe play suggests that the Ghost really is the spirit o Hamlet’sather, though Hamlet himsel wonders at times i the Ghostmight be a demon in disguise.
Fortinbras
— A prince o Norway, whose ather, Old Fortin-bras, died in battle with Old Hamlet and lost lands to Denmark.Fortinbras seeks to revenge his ather’s death and retake thelost lands. As another son seeking revenge or his ather, Fort-inbras oers another “double” o 
Hamlet
.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
— Friends o 
Hamlet
’srom Wittenberg who help
Claudius
and
Gertrude
try andgure out the source o Hamlet’s melancholy. Hamlet seesthat the two are, essentially, spying on him, and turns on them.Rosencrantz and Guildenstern aren’t the smartest ellows, butthey do seem to mean well, and the announcement o theirdeaths at the end o the play helps to drive home the absurdand bloody lengths to which vengeance can extend once it isunleashed.
Osric
— A oppish nobleman who fatters everyone morepowerul than him and speaks in very fowery language.
First Player
— The leader o the troupe o actors who cometo Elsinore.
Gravediggers
— Two commoners employed to dig thegraves in the local churchyard.
Marcellus
— A guardsman o Elsinore.
Barnardo
— A guardsman o Elsinore.
Francisco
— A guardsman o Elsinore.
Voltemand
— A Danish ambassador to Norway.
Cornelius
— A Danish ambassador to Norway.
Reynaldo
— A servant o 
Polonius
.
Yorick
— A jester at Elsinore in
Hamlet
’s youth.
Captain
— An ocer in Fortinbras’s army.
Action and Inaction
Hamlet 
ts in a literary tradition called the revenge play, inwhich a man must take revenge against those who have insome way wronged him. Yet
Hamlet 
turns the revenge playon its head in an ingenious way:
Hamlet
, the man seeking re-venge, can’t actually bring himsel to take revenge. For reasonater reason, some clear to the audience, some not, he delays.Hamlet’s delay has been a subject o debate rom the day theplay was rst perormed, and he is oten held up as an exampleo the classic “indecisive” person, who thinks to much andacts too little. But
Hamlet 
is more complicated and interestingthan such simplistic analysis would indicate. Because whileit’s true that Hamlet ails to act while many other people doact, it’s not as i the actions o the other characters in the playwork out.
Claudius’s
plots backre,
Gertrude
marries herhusband’s murderer and dies or it,
Laertes
is manipulatedand killed by his own treachery, and on, and on, and on. In theend,
Hamlet 
does not provide a conclusion about the meritso action versus inaction. Instead, the play makes the deeplycynical suggestion that there is only one result o 
both
actionand inaction—death.
Appearance vs. Reality
In Act 1, scene 2 o Hamlet,
Gertrude
asks why
Hamlet
is stillin mourning two months ater his ather died: “Why seems it soparticular with thee?” Hamlet responds: “Seems, madam? Nay,it is, I know not ‘seems.’” (1.2.75-76). The dierence between“seems” (appearance) and “is” (reality) is crucial in
Hamlet 
.Every character is constantly trying to gure out what the othercharacters think, as opposed to what those characters are
 pre-tending 
to think. The characters try to gure each other out byusing deception o their own, such as spying and plotting.But Hamlet takes it a step urther. He not only investigatesother people, he also peers into his own soul and asks philo-sophical and religious questions about lie and death. Hamlet’sobsession with what’s real has three main eects: 1) he be-comes so caught up in the search or reality that he ceasesto be able to act; 2) in order to prove what’s real and whatisn’t Hamlet himsel must hide his “reality” behind an “appear-ance” o madness; 3) the more closely Hamlet looks, the lessreal and coherent
everything 
seems to be. Many analyses o 
Hamlet 
ocus only on the rst eect, Hamlet’s indecisiveness.But the second two eects are just as important. The secondshows that the relationship between appearance and reality isindistinct. The third suggests that the world is ounded on un-damental inconsistencies that most people overlook, and thatit is this
failure
to recognize inconsistencies that allows them toact. Hamlet’s atal faw isn’t that he’s wrong to see uncertaintyin everything, but that he’s right.
Women
There are two important issues regarding women in
Hamlet 
:how
Hamlet
sees women and women’s social position. Ham-let’s view o women is decidedly dark. In act, the ew timesthat Hamlet’s pretend madness seems to veer into actualmadness occur when he gets urious at women.
Gertrude’s
 marriage to
Claudius
has convinced Hamlet that womenare untrustworthy, that their beauty is a cover or deceit andsexual desire. For Hamlet, women are living embodiments o appearance’s corrupt eort to eclipse reality.As or women’s social position, its dening characteristic ispowerlessness. Gertrude’s quick marriage to Claudius, thoughimmoral, is also her only way to maintain her status.
Ophelia
 has even ewer options. While Hamlet
waits
to seek revenge orhis ather’s death, Ophelia, as a woman,
can’t 
act—all she cando is wait or
Laertes
to return and take
his
revenge. Ophelia’spredicament is symbolic o women’s position in general inHamlet: they are completely dependent on men.
Religion, Honor, and Revenge
Every society is dened by its codes o conduct—its rulesabout how to act and behave. There are many scenes in
Hamlet 
when one person tells another how to act:
Claudius
lectures
Hamlet
on the proper show o grie;
Polonius
ad-vises
Laertes
on practical rules or getting by at university inFrance; Hamlet constantly lectures himsel on what he shouldbe doing. In
Hamlet 
, the codes o conduct are largely denedby religion and an aristocratic code that demands honor andrevenge i honor has been soiled.But as Hamlet actually begins to pursue revenge againstClaudius, he discovers that the codes o conduct themselvesdon’t t together. Religion actually opposes revenge, whichwould mean that taking revenge could endanger Hamlet’sown soul. In other words, Hamlet discovers that the codes o conduct on which society is ounded are contradictory. In sucha world,
Hamlet 
suggests, the reasons or revenge becomemuddy, and the idea o justice conused.
Poison, Corruption, Death
In medieval times people believed that the health o a na-tion was connected to the legitimacy o its king. In
Hamlet 
,Denmark is oten described as poisoned, diseased, or corruptunder
Claudius
’s leadership. As visible in the nervous soldierson the ramparts in the rst scene and the commoners outsidethe castle who Claudius ears might rise up in rebellion, eventhose who don’t know that Claudius murdered Old Hamletsense the corruption o Denmark and are disturbed. It is as i the poison Claudius poured into Old Hamlet’s ear has spreadthrough Denmark itsel.
Hamlet
also speaks in terms o rot and corruption, de-scribing the world as an “unweeded garden” and constantlyreerring to decomposing bodies. But Hamlet does not limithimsel to Denmark; he talks about all o 
life
in these disgust-ing images. In act, Hamlet only seems comortable with thingsthat
 are
dead: he reveres his ather, claims to love
Ophelia
 once she’s dead, and handles
Yorick
’s skull with tender care.No, what disgusts him is
life
: his mother’s sexuality, womenwearing makeup to hide their age, worms eeding on a corpse,people lying to get their way. By the end o the play, Hamletargues that death is the one true reality, and he seems toview all o lie as “appearance” doing everything it can—romseeking power, to lying, to committing murder, to engaging inpassionate and illegitimate sex—to hide rom that reality.
 Themes
Yorick’s Skull
Hamlet is not a very symbolic play. In act, the only object thatone can easily pick out as a symbol in the play is the skull o Yorick, a ormer court jester, which Hamlet nds with Horatioin the graveyard near Elsinore in Act 5, scene 1. As Hamletpicks up the skull and both talks to the deceased Yorick andto Horatio about the skull, it becomes clear that the skullrepresents the inevitability o death. But what is perhaps mostinteresting about the skull as a symbol is that, while in mostplays, a symbol means one thing to the audience and anotherto the characters in the novel or play, in
Hamlet 
it is Hamlethimsel who recognizes and explains the symbolism o Yorick’sskull. Even this symbol serves to emphasize Hamlet’s power asa character: he is as sophisticated as his audience.
Symbols
Symbols are shown in
red
text whenever they appear in the
Plot Summary 
and
 Summary and Analysis
sections o thisLitChart.In LitCharts, each theme gets its own corresponding color,which you can use to track where the themes occur in thework. There are two ways to track themes:Reer to the color-coded bars next to each plot point
•
throughout the
 Summary and Analysis
sections.Use the
•
ThemeTracker 
section to get a quick overview o where the themes appear throughout the entire work.
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Summary and Analysis
Act 1, scene 1
On the ramparts o the Danish castle Elsinore, theguardsman
Barnardo
relieves
Francisco
. The menare nervous, calling out “Who’s there?”
Marcellus
,another guard, and
Horatio
, a nobleman, arrive.
The nervous cries of “who’sthere?” builds a sense of dread and develops the theme of uncertain reality.
A
Ghost
appears. It looks like the recently deceasedOld Hamlet, King o Denmark.
Horatio
tries to speakto it, but it disappears.
The appearance of the ghost 
conrms that something is not 
right in Denmark.
Horatio
says the
ghost
might be warning o anattack. Ater all, the prince o Norway,
Fortinbras
, israising an army to retake lands that Old Hamlet wonin battle rom Fortinbras’ ather.
The ghost is connected immedi-ately to the theme of revenge— Fortinbras’s revenge.
The
Ghost
reappears but disappears again withoutspeaking when the cock crows to greet the dawn.
Horatio
decides they should tell
Hamlet
, the deadKing’s son, about the ghost.
Every father/son relationship inthe play leads to revenge.
Act 1, scene 2
The next morning,
King Claudius
, the brother o thedead king, holds court. He uses pretty language tomake his recent marriage to
Gertrude
, his brother’swidow, sound perectly normal. He says it is possibleto balance “woe” and “joy.”
Claudius uses language as atool to smooth over actions that are immoral. He uses languageto create the appearance of propriety.
Claudius
then says he has received a messagerom
Fortinbras
demanding Denmark give up thelands Old Hamlet won rom Old Fortinbras. He sends
Cornelius
and
Voltemand
with a message toFortinbras’ elderly uncle, the King o Norway.
Fortinbras is a son looking torevenge his father.
Claudius
turns to
Laertes
, the son o the LordChamberlain,
Polonius
. Laertes asks to be allowed toreturn to his studies in France. Claudius agrees.
Laertes/Polonius is another father/son relationship.
Next,
Claudius
turns to
Hamlet
, and asks why he isstill dressed in mourning clothes.
Gertrude
wonderswhy he “seems” so upset. Hamlet says he “is” upset,and that his clothes can’t capture his true mourning.
By emphasizing that how he“is” is more important thanhow he “seems,” Hamlet impliesthat his interior reality is morepowerful than any appearance.
Claudius
chides that it’s natural or athers to die andor sons to mourn, but that mourning or too long isunnatural and unmanly. He asks
Hamlet
to see himas a ather, since Hamlet is rst in line to the thrown.He asks Hamlet not to return to Wittenberg, Germanyto study.
Claudius lectures Hamlet onwhat’s natural, but Claudiusmurdered his own brother! Appearance vs. reality. Also,Wittenberg was where theReformation, a schism inreligion, started.
Gertrude
seconds the request.
Hamlet
promises toobey his mother.
But, tellingly, he doesn’t promiseto obey Claudius.
All exit but
Hamlet
. In a soliloquy, Hamlet wisheshe could die and that God had not made suicide asin. He condemns the marriage between his motherand uncle. He says
Claudius
is ar inerior to OldHamlet, and, in anguish, describes
Gertrude
as alustul beast.
It’s important to note that Hamlet’s death wish exists evenbefore he learns of his father’smurder. Fury at his mother’smarriage to Claudius is enoughto make him contemplatesuicide.
Horatio
,
Marcellus
, and
Barnardo
enter.
Hamlet
,who studied with Horatio at Wittenberg, is happy tosee his riend, and pleased when Horatio agrees that
Gertrude
and
Claudius
’s marriage was hasty.
Horatio proves he is willing to speak honestly about real-ity by noting the speed of thewedding.
Horatio
tells
Hamlet
about the
ghost
. Hamlet,troubled, decides to watch with the men that night.
Hamlet learns his internal feel-ings of unease are mirrored by spiritual unease in Denmark.
Act 1, scene 3
As he prepares to leave or France,
Laertes
warns hissister
Ophelia
not to all or
Hamlet
, a young manwhose passions will change, and a prince who mustmarry to preserve the “sanity and health” o the state.
Laertes worries about Ophelia’shonor just as Hamlet worriesabout Gertrude’s.
Ophelia
promises, but sassily tells
Laertes
to listento his own advice.
Inequality between men and women.
Polonius
enters, scolds his son or taking so long,then immediately starts giving him long-windedadvice about how to act: be sociable, but not vulgar;do not lend or borrow money; to your own sel betrue, and on and on… Finally, he lets
Laertes
leave.
Father/son talk here mirrorsClaudius’s with Hamlet— except Polonius isn’t just trying to hide a secret.
Polonius
asks
Ophelia
what she was talking aboutwith
Laertes
. Ophelia answers:
Hamlet
. AterPolonius asks her to explain, she says that Hamlethas expressed his love or her. Polonius tells her thatHamlet is pretending to love her in order to sleep withher, and orbids her to talk to him.
Polonius gave Laertes advice,but gives Ophelia orders:women in Denmark areexpected to obey.
Ophelia
promises to obey.
 Just as Hamlet promised Gertrude.
Act 1, scene 4
On the bitter cold ramparts,
Hamlet
,
Horatio
, and
Marcellus
keep watch. Meanwhile, rom inside thecastle they hear the roar o revelry. Hamlet condemns
Claudius
’s constant merry-making, saying that itmakes the noble Danes look “swinish” and corrupt.
Hamlet connects indulgenceof desires to corruption. What looks like enjoyment only hidesinternal corruption.
The
Ghost
appears and beckons
Hamlet
to ollow it.But
Horatio
and
Marcellus
hold him back: they thinkthe ghost may be a demon laying a trap or him.
Religion provides no answers:what looks good could be evil.
Hamlet
breaks ree o them and ollows ater theGhost.
Hamlet takes decisive action.
Marcellus
says “something is rotten in the state o Denmark” (1.4.90). They run ater
Hamlet
.
The nation suffers for the im-morality of its leaders.
Act 1, scene 5
When
Hamlet
and the
Ghost
are alone, the Ghostspeaks. It claims to be the spirit o Old Hamlet,murdered by
Claudius
. Though the ocial story isthat Old Hamlet was napping in his garden and wasstung by a serpent, in reality Claudius poured poisoninto the sleeping man’s ear, murdering him andsending him to Purgatory because he was not given achance to coness his sins beore he died.
The Ghost reveals reality. Alsonote that the way Claudiusmurdered Old Hamlet, by pour-ing poison into Old Hamlet’sear, is actually a wonderful metaphor for lying, for using language to hide reality.
The
Ghost
commands
Hamlet
to seek revenge againstClaudius or murder and or corrupting
Gertrude
. Yetthe Ghost also warns Hamlet not to harm his mother.Dawn breaks. The Ghost disappears.
 Another command from afather. Another promise to obey.
Hamlet
promises to do nothing but seek revenge. Hecurses rst
Gertrude
, “O most pernicious woman!”(1.5.105), then
Claudius
, “That one may smile, andsmile, and be a villain!” (1.5.108).
Hamlet promises to act, yet he curses his mother beforeClaudius. A “smiling villain” isan example of appearancevs. reality.
Horatio
and
Marcellus
rush in.
Hamlet
reuses totell them what happened, saying they’ll reveal it. Buthe does say he may pretend to be insane, and makesthem swear to silence on his sword. The
Ghost
’svoice echoes: Swear! They swear.
 As soon as reality is revealed,Hamlet hides behind mask of madness. But at times already he seems actually to be mad.
Hamlet
despairs at the burden the
Ghost
has givenhim: “The time is out o joint. / O cursed spite! Thatever I was born to set it right!” (1.5.189-190).
 A few lines after promising toseek revenge, Hamlet is already cursing his fate.
The color-coded bars in
 Summary and Analysis
make it easy to track the themes through thework. Each color corresponds to one o the themes explained in the Themes section. For in-stance, a bar o indicates that all ve themes apply to that part o the summary.
3
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