Hamlet

Summary
Act I
Late at night, guards on the battlements of Denmark's Elsinore castle are met by Horatio, Prince Hamlet's
friend from school. The guards describe a ghost they have seen that resembles Hamlet's father, the recently-
deceased king. At that moment, the Ghost reappears, and the guards and Horatio decide to tell Hamlet.
Claudius, Hamlet's uncle, married Hamlet's recently-widowed mother, becoming the new King of Denmark.
Hamlet continues to mourn for his father's death and laments his mother's lack of loyalty. When Hamlet
hears of the Ghost from Horatio, he wants to see it for himself. 
Elsewhere, the royal attendant Polonius says farewell to his son Laertes, who is departing for France. Laertes
warns his sister, Ophelia, away from Hamlet and thinking too much of his attentions towards her. 
The Ghost appears to Hamlet, claiming indeed to be the ghost of his father. He tells Hamlet about how
Claudius, the current King and Hamlet's uncle, murdered him, and Hamlet swears vengeance for his father.
Hamlet decides to feign madness while he tests the truth of the Ghost's allegations (always a good idea in
such situations). 

Act II
According to his plan, Hamlet begins to act strangely. He rejects Ophelia, while Claudius and Polonius, the
royal attendant, spy on him. They had hoped to find the reason for Hamlet's sudden change in behaviour but
could not. Claudius summons Guildenstern and Rosencrantz, old friends of Hamlet to find out what's got into
him. Their arrival coincides with a group of travelling actors that Hamlet happens to know well. Hamlet
writes a play which includes scenes that mimic the murder of Hamlet's father. During rehearsal, Hamlet and
the actors plot to present Hamlet's play before the King and Queen.  

Act III
At the performance, Hamlet watches Claudius closely to see how he reacts. The play provokes Claudius, and
he interrupts the action by storming out. He immediately resolves to send Hamlet away. Hamlet is
summoned by his distressed mother, Gertrude, and on the way, he happens upon Claudius kneeling and
attempting to pray. Hamlet reasons that to kill the King now would only send his soul to heaven rather than
hell. Hamlet decides to spare his life for the time being.  

Polonius hides in Gertrude's room to protect her from her unpredicatable son. When Hamlet arrives to scold
his mother, her hears Polonius moving behind the arras (a kind of tapestry). He stabs the tapestry and, in so
doing, kills Polonius. The ghost of Hamlet's father reappears and warns his son not to delay revenge or upset
his mother. 

Act IV
Hamlet is sent to England, supposedly as an ambassador, just as King Fortinbras of Norway crosses
Denmark with an army to attack Poland. During his journey, Hamlet discovers Claudius has a plan to have
him killed once he arrives. He returns to Denmark alone, sending his companions Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern to their deaths in his place. 
Rejected by Hamlet, Ophelia is now desolate at the loss of her father. She goes mad and drowns. 

Act V
On the way back to Denmark, Hamlet meets Horatio in the graveyard (along with a gravedigger), where they
talk of the chances of life and death. Ophelia's funeral procession arrives at the very same graveyard (what
luck!). Hamlet confronts Laertes, Ophelia's brother, who has taken his father's place at the court. 
A duel is arranged between Hamlet and Laertes. During the match, Claudius conspires with Laertes to kill
Hamlet. They plan that Hamlet will die either on a poisoned rapier or with poisoned wine. The plans go awry
when Gertrude unwittingly drinks from the poisoned cup and dies. Then both Laertes and Hamlet are
wounded by the poisoned blade, and Laertes dies. 
Hamlet, in his death throes, kills Claudius. Hamlet dies, leaving only his friend Horatio to explain the truth to
the new king, Fortinbras, as he returns in victory from the Polish wars.

Themes
The theme of revenge in Hamlet
There are two young men bent on avenging their father’s death in this play. Hamlet and Laertes are both on
the same mission, and while Hamlet is pondering his approach to the problem Laertes is hot on his heels,
determined to kill him as Hamlet has killed his father, Polonius. This is, therefore, a double revenge story.
Shakespeare examines the practice of revenge by having two entirely different approaches to it – the hot-
headed abandon of Laertes and the philosophical, cautious approach by Hamlet. The two strands run parallel
– invoking comparisons, each one throwing light on the other – until the young men’s duel and both their
deaths. The revenge theme feeds into the religious element of the play as Hamlet is conflicted by his
Christian aversion to killing someone and his duty to avenge his father’s death, whereas it is not a
consideration for Laertes, whose duty is clear to him, and he acts on it immediately.

The theme of corruption

Corruption is a major concern in this play. The text is saturated with images of corruption, in several forms –
decay, death, poison. From the very first moments of the play the images start and set the atmosphere of
corruption which is going to grow as Shakespeare explores this theme. The tone is set when Marcellus says,
‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,’ after seeing the ghost of Hamlet’s father. What Shakespeare is
doing here, and in using the image structure of corruption, is addressing the broadly held view that a nation’s
health is connected to the legitimacy of its king. Here we have the ghost of a murdered king, and his
murderer – a decidedly illegitimate king – is sitting on his throne. All through the play, Hamlet is
preoccupied with rot and corruption – both of the body and the soul, reflecting the way in which society is
destroyed by the corruption of its inner institutions – in this case, the court, which is the government.

Decay, rot and mould are always in Hamlet’s mind, and his language is full of those images – ‘an unweeded
garden that grows to seed – things rank and gross possess it,’ and countless images of death and disease. He
hides Polonius’ body in a place where it will decay rapidly and stink out the castle. It’s an image of the
corruption in secret places that is going to contaminate the whole country.

The theme of religion

Religion has an impact on the actions of the characters in this play. Hamlet’s ‘to be or not to be’ soliloquy
outlines his religious thinking on the subject of suicide. He declines to kill Claudius while he is praying for
fear of sending him to heaven when he should be going to hell. Hamlet believes, too, that ‘there is a destiny
that shapes our ends.’

One of the most important things of all in this play is the Christian idea of making a sacrifice to achieve
healing. Hamlet is Christ-like in his handling of the crisis. The court is rotten with corruption and the people
in it are almost all involved in plotting and scheming against others. Hamlet’s way of dealing with it is to
wait and watch as all the perpetrators fall into their own traps –‘hauled by their own petards,’ as he puts it.
All he has to do is be ready – like Christ. ‘The readiness is all,’ he says. And then, all around him, the
corruption collapses in on itself and the court is purified. Like Christ, though, he has to be sacrificed to
achieve that, and he is, leaving a scene of renewal and hope.
The Hamlet theme of politics
Hamlet is a political drama. Hamlet’s uncle has murdered his father, the king. He has subsequently done
Hamlet out of his right of succession and become king. Hamlet’s mother has married the king while the rest
of the palace is engaged in palatial intrigues, leading to wider conspiracies and murders. The king, Claudius,
determined to safeguard his position in the face of the threat Hamlet presents, plots in several ways to kill
Hamlet. Polonius plots against Hamlet to ingratiate himself with Claudius. Characters, including Hamlet’s
mother, Gertrude, spy on each other. This is all to do with power and the quest to achieve and hold it.

The theme of appearance and reality

This is a major theme in every one of Shakespeare’s plays. The text of Hamlet is saturated with references to
the gap that exists between how things seem to be and how they really are. Very little in this play is really as
it seems. That is bound to be so in a play in which there are so many murderous plots and schemes by those
who, on the surface, strive to appear innocent, like Claudius, who, behind his charismatic smile, is a damned
villain. He is, as Hamlet puts it, a ‘smiling villain.’ Although Ophelia loves Hamlet she pretends to spurn his
affections. Hamlet pretends to be mad so that he can explore the ghost’s assertion that Claudius killed him.
All the characters, in one way or another, are hiding their true intentions.

What makes this theme particularly interesting and different in this play is that as the play develops the gap
between appearance and reality narrows by the characters becoming more like the masks they are using than
any reality that may lie behind that so the identities they have assumed eventually become their realities.

The theme of women

For much of the play, Hamlet is in a state of agitation. It is when he is talking to either of the two female
characters that he is most agitated – so much so that he is driven to violence against them. He cares about
both but does not trust either. He feels his mother, Gertrude, has let him down by her ‘o’er hasty marriage’ to
Claudius. To him, it means that she didn’t really love his father. In the case of Ophelia, he is suspicious that
she is part of the palace plot against him.

Both women die in this play. Ophelia is driven mad by the treatment she receives from the three men –
Claudius, Polonius and Hamlet – and takes her own life. Gertrude’s death is more complex because it raises
the question: how far is she responsible for the corruption that Hamlet has to deal with?

Whilst the play features the meeting and falling in love of the two main protagonists, to say that love is a
theme of Romeo and Juliet is an oversimplification. Rather, Shakespeare structures Romeo and Juliet around
several contrasting ideas, with a number of themes expressed as opposites. To say that the tension between
love and hate is a major theme in Romeo and Juliet gets us closer to what the play is about. These – and
other – opposing ideas reverberate with each other and are intertwined through the text.

Action and inaction

Hamlet can fit what is called a traditional revenge play, however, what it is ingenious about Hamlet and sets
it apart from the rest, is that its protagonist is unable to commit the act of revenge. Therefore, revenge is not
a central theme in the play (despite still being a theme) but rather indecisiveness is. In Hamlet, there are
characters in the play that act brashly and with very little hesitation while Hamlet seems to be the only one
that pauses, contemplates, and continuously delays his quest. An example of this is Laertes, who after
hearing the news of his father’s death, immediately storms his way to Denmark and demands the head of his
father’s murderer without a second of doubt. This greatly contrasts Hamlet, to which he needs not only to
prove that Claudius murdered Old King Hamlet but must act insane so that he may have the opportunity to
kill him at just the right moment. In any case, Hamlet’s exhaustive meticulous thought process and
procrastination whose motivations are often debated, make him unique to the rest of the characters in the
play. However, what is interesting is neither side has particularly more success than the other (actions vs
inaction). 
For example, although Claudius promptly formulates a plan to kill Hamlet, his plan backfires and ends up in
his death. Laertes immediately acts on his father's death but is manipulated and dies by his own treachery.
Shortly after Old King Hamlet's death, Gertrude marries Claudius but ends up dying for it at the
end. Similarly  Hamlet does not have much better success because although he has the perfect opportunity to
kill Claudius quietly while he is praying, he does not, and thus dies for it at the end. So, the question remains,
is it better to be active or inactive? Better to be a risk taker or a passive decision maker? 

The answer is neither, it is somewhere in between. It is not good to over think a situation to the point that one
can never come to a decision and thus continuously delays the decision and neither is it good to act too
quickly or on impulse. Instead, a fair bit of reasonable thought should be put in (not extensively) and action
should be made after a respectable time frame and with careful consideration. In the case of the play, Hamlet
should kill Claudius while he is kneeling as it represents the perfect time frame to do so. Hamlet does not act
too briskly because he had already proven to himself that Claudius is guilty of the murder, but neither does
he procrastinate which would lead to a missed opportunity and his death in the future. In any case,
Shakespeare might imply that there is always an impossibility of certainty  one can never be sure of the
results of their actions or whether they are right in acting in such a way. This theme correlates to
society nowadays as people are constantly and will always encounter tough decisions. 

Theme of Honor

Although it is not that significant, honor is another theme that various characters depict through their actions
and dialogues. The honor that Hamlet feels lies in his revenge of his father’s murder. However, he always
thinks that his honor is at stake if his actions have no justification. On the other hand, Laertes thinks that he
will lose his honor if he does not exact revenge of his slain father who Hamlet mistakenly kills. In other
words, the true honor for both lies in seeking revenge for their fathers though in a different way. Therefore,
honor is one of the notable themes of Hamlet.

Characters

Hamlet

The Prince of Denmark, the title character, and the protagonist. About thirty years old at the start of the play,
Hamlet is the son of Queen Gertrude and the late King Hamlet, and the nephew of the present king,
Claudius. Hamlet is melancholy, bitter, and cynical, full of hatred for his uncle’s scheming and disgust for
his mother’s sexuality. A reflective and thoughtful young man who has studied at the University of
Wittenberg, Hamlet is often indecisive and hesitant, but at other times prone to rash and impulsive acts.A
university student whose studies are interrupted by his father’s death, Hamlet is extremely philosophical and
contemplative. He is particularly drawn to difficult questions or questions that cannot be answered with any
certainty. Faced with evidence that his uncle murdered his father, evidence that any other character in a play
would believe, Hamlet becomes obsessed with proving his uncle’s guilt before trying to act. The standard of
“beyond a reasonable doubt” is simply unacceptable to him. He is equally plagued with questions about the
afterlife, about the wisdom of suicide, about what happens to bodies after they die—the list is extensive.
But even though he is thoughtful to the point of obsession, Hamlet also behaves rashly and impulsively.
When he does act, it is with surprising swiftness and little or no premeditation, as when he stabs Polonius
through a curtain without even checking to see who he is. He seems to step very easily into the role of a
madman, behaving erratically and upsetting the other characters with his wild speech and pointed innuendos.
It is also important to note that Hamlet is extremely melancholy and discontented with the state of affairs in
Denmark and in his own family—indeed, in the world at large. He is extremely disappointed with his mother
for marrying his uncle so quickly, and he repudiates Ophelia, a woman he once claimed to love, in the
harshest terms. His words often indicate his disgust with and distrust of women in general. At a number of
points in the play, he contemplates his own death and even the option of suicide.
But, despite all of the things with which Hamlet professes dissatisfaction, it is remarkable that the prince and
heir apparent of Denmark should think about these problems only in personal and philosophical terms. He
spends relatively little time thinking about the threats to Denmark’s national security from without or the
threats to its stability from within (some of which he helps to create through his own carelessness).

Claudius

The King of Denmark, Hamlet’s uncle, and the play’s antagonist. The villain of the play, Claudius is a
calculating, ambitious politician, driven by his sexual appetites and his lust for power, but he occasionally
shows signs of guilt and human feeling—his love for Gertrude, for instance, seems sincere.
Hamlet’s major antagonist is a shrewd, lustful, conniving king who contrasts sharply with the other male
characters in the play. Whereas most of the other important men in Hamlet are preoccupied with ideas of
justice, revenge, and moral balance, Claudius is bent upon maintaining his own power. The old King Hamlet
was apparently a stern warrior, but Claudius is a corrupt politician whose main weapon is his ability to
manipulate others through his skillful use of language. Claudius’s speech is compared to poison being
poured in the ear—the method he used to murder Hamlet’s father. Claudius’s love for Gertrude may be
sincere, but it also seems likely that he married her as a strategic move, to help him win the throne away
from Hamlet after the death of the king.
As the play progresses, Claudius’s mounting fear of Hamlet’s insanity leads him to ever greater self-
preoccupation; when Gertrude tells him that Hamlet has killed Polonius, Claudius does not remark that
Gertrude might have been in danger, but only that he would have been in danger had he been in the room. He
tells Laertes the same thing as he attempts to soothe the young man’s anger after his father’s death. Claudius
is ultimately too crafty for his own good. In Act V, scene ii, rather than allowing Laertes only two methods
of killing Hamlet, the sharpened sword and the poison on the blade, Claudius insists on a third, the poisoned
goblet. When Gertrude inadvertently drinks the poison and dies, Hamlet is at last able to bring himself to kill
Claudius, and the king is felled by his own cowardly machination.