Act 3, scene iv

ACT III, scene iv: “The Closet Scene”

1. What important action happens right at the beginning of the scene? How is this ironic, given Hamlet’s previous behavior?

2. Hamlet’s final judgment on Polonius is that he was “wretched, rash, intruding fool.” Choose the four words that Laertes would use to describe his father. Do the same with Ophelia.

3. Hamlet basically accuses Gertrude of killing his father in lines 34-35. Is this fair? Do you think she was in on Claudius’s plot?

Examine the way Gertrude responds to Hamlet:

What have I done, that thou dar’st wag thy tongue in noise so rude against me? (46-47)

O Hamlet, speak no more! Thou turnst my eyes into my very soul, And there I see such black and grained spots. (99-102)

O, speak to me no more! These words like daggers enter in my ears. No more, sweet Hamlet! (107-109)

4. How does Gertrude feel about this tongue lashing from her son?

5. Why does the Ghost come back at this point, in your opinion?

Act 3, scene iii questions

Act 3, scene 3, lines 36-72: Claudius soliloquy & Hamlet’s response

KING: My offence is rank, it smells to heaven;

it hath the primal eldest curse on upon’t.

A brother’s murder. Pray can I not,

Though inclination be as sharp as will.

1. Where is Claudius when he says these lines?

2. What do they say about his state of mind?

KING: What form of prayer

Can serve my turn? “Forgive me foul murder”?

That cannot be, since I am still possessed

Of those effects for which I did the murder,

My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.

May one be pardoned and retain th’offence?

3. Claudius is arguing with himself. What are the two sides?

HAMLET: Now might I do it, now he is praying,

And now I’ll do it – and so he goes to heaven,

And so I am revenged. That would be scanned.

A villain kills my father, and for that,

I his sole son do this same villain send to heaven. Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge.

4. Where is Hamlet at this point?

5. What is Hamlet’s argument with himself?

6. What does Hamlet decide at the end of the speech?

KING:

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

7. What do we learn about Claudius here? How is it ironic?

Hamlet: Too Solid Flesh Soliloquy

Here are the notes about the "too solid flesh" soliloquy in Act I.

Hamlet 2.2 study questions

Act II, Scene ii, 213-338: Hamlet Jokes With Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

1) How can you tell that Hamlet is suspicious that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern might be spying on him? Identify at least one line that suggests it.

2) What is your opinion of Hamlet’s line in 239-240: “for there is nothing either good / or bad but thinking makes it so.” Is that true?

3) Examine Hamlet’s description of his own mood in lines 278-292 (from “I have of late…lost all my mirth”). Describe how Hamlet uses antithesis in this passage.

4) What does this passage reveal? How is Hamlet feeling?

5) Describe the joke that ends this passage. Why did Hamlet end this rather bleak speech with a joke?

Act II, scene ii, lines 500-559: “O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I”

1) Hamlet is being really tough on himself. List at least five bad names that he calls himself in this soliloquy.

2) Why is he berating himself?

3) In the first 20 lines of the soliloquy, he sets up an antithesis between himself and the “player” (actor) whom he just met. What contrast does he describe?

4) What plan does Hamlet hatch at the end of the soliloquy?