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?