HAMLET

William Shakespeare



MAJOR THEMES

1. REVENGE

2. APPEARANCE vs. REALITY

3. MADNESS vs. SANITY

4. CORRUPTION and CONTAMINATION
(poison)

MOTIFS
a. Readiness is all
b.Conscience doth make cowards of us all
(III,i, 90) To be, or not to be
c. Ear/listening
d.Mirror
e. Illness/contamination imagery


A Ghostly Mood

Mood or atmosphere : the feeling the reader or viewer has

ACT I
Setting (time and place)
Elsinore Castle, Denmark - midnight (I, i, 6) - bitter cold (I, i, 8)

The guards are nervous and sick at heart (I, i, 8) for they have seen nightly
visitations of an armed ghost that looks like the late king Hamlet.

Mood arises out of the setting and the plot; a feeling of foreboding, fear,
suspense

GHOST OF HAMLET SR.


HONEST? DISHONEST?
Can be believed - not to be trusted
Messenger - harbinger of evil
Soul who does not r.i.p. because - spirit who wants to tempt
of some unfinished business someone to disaster or evil

The guards ask Horatio, Hamlets trusted school friend, to come and see the ghost.
Horatio, as a scholar rather than a military man, would be able to speak Latin to the
ghost.

Horatio sees the ghost and tells Hamlet. Thus the conflict begins




Personal conflicts affect political conflicts and vice versa:

Individual family court nation nature metaphysical (God)

Corruption: Absolute Monarchy is top down
*** if King is corrupt, all of society is tainted.

KING Nobles Upper Class Peasants & Commoners