Exam

Maria Roxana Giorgiana

1. The sources of tragedy in Hamlet are : - The death of Hamlet’s father

- The behaviour of Hamlet’s mother
- His Villainous Uncle

2. In this scene Hamlet thinks about life, death, and suicide. Specifically, he wonders whether it
might be preferable to commit suicide to end one's suffering and to leave behind the pain
and agony associated with living. I think this problem is still relevant for us today, and will
always be, because sometimes people are suffering too much, and they just want to end this
suffer, even if this means to end their own lives.
3.  Like so many others, Hamlet fears the uncertainty dying brings and is tormented by the
possibility of ending up in Hell—a place even more miserable than life. He quickly changes his
tune about committing suicide when he considers that nobody knows for sure what happens
after death, namely whether there is an afterlife and whether this afterlife might be even
worse than life. This realization is what ultimately gives Hamlet (and others, he reasons)
"pause" when it comes to taking action.
4. Hamlet has a tragic flaw in his personality and behavior. His flaw is that he is overly
concerned with death and tragedy. This flaw or weakness in Hamlet leads him into a world of
chaotic surroundings and madness. Hamlet’s flaw and his mad personality led to the death of
several people, including his mother and the King of Denmark!  If Hamlet did not have this
fascination with death and tragedy, the deaths of the several people would not have
occurred–including his own.
5. The play contains distinct echoes of a truly ‘alternative’, but often despised, British theatrical
tradition – that of music-hall comedy (based on the comic interaction and improvisation of a
comic duo of performers); in Beckett’s hands, that tradition was transformed by a sparse, but
none the less definite, musicality and by a dialogue rich in literary resonance. Beckett was
consistent in his use of drama as an extension of his wider interest in the gaps, the jumps,
and the lurches that characterise the functioning or malfunctioning of the human mind –
ideas, phrases, images and minds overlap; voices both interrupt and inherit trains of thought
begun elsewhere or nowhere and separate consciousnesses both impede and impress
themselves on one another.
6. Faustus is the protagonist and tragic hero of Marlowe’s play. He is a contradictory character,
capable of tremendous eloquence and possessing awesome ambition, yet prone to a strange,
almost willful blindness and a willingness to waste powers that he has gained at great cost.
The risks taken by Doctor Faustus may be seen to mirror those taken by its author. While he
was still a student at Cambridge in the 1580s, Marlowe probably gathered intelligence for Sir
Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth's spymaster. Apparently, Marlowe specialised in
infiltrating Catholic conspiracies. This espionage work endangered Marlowe from both sides:
the Catholics he sought to entrap would retaliate if they discovered his double-dealings, and
ill-informed Protestant zealots might arrest Marlowe if he played his part too well. Marlowe
thus has some of the doubleness of  Doctor Faustus: either safely legitimate or dangerously
radical.
7. In Waiting for Godot, Beckett often focused on the idea of "the suffering of being." Most of
the play deals with the fact that Estragon and Vladimir are waiting for something to relieve
them from their boredom. Godot can be understood as one of the many things in life that
people wait for. Waiting for Godot is part of the ‘Theater of the Absurd’. This implies that it is
meant to be irrational and meaningless. Absurd theater does not have the concepts of
drama, chronological plot, logical language, themes, and recognizable settings. Samuel
Beckett’s play is based on the belief that the universe is irrational and meaningless and the
search for order brings the individual into conflict with the universe. The play Waiting For
Godot by Samuel Beckett portrays two aimless characters in a world of alienation and no
meaning. The absurdity of the situation of the characters arises from their hope for a
meaningful life. This possibility of hope that never arrives leads to humor as well as tragedy.
8. Richard is debating the acerbity of wit and criticism of affectation.
9. The nature of the tension is the criticism. This play represents a satirical defence of his own
art against hacks, detractors, unworthy rivals.