analyze how Shakespeare develops and relates the characters and plots of Hamlet, especially through foils and parallel revenge plots, so that Hamlet’s delay becomes the play’s subject.
Instruction
Hamlet is a revenge play in which the revenge takes five acts. In Act 1 the Ghost of Hamlet’s father tells him that his uncle Claudius murdered him, seized the throne, and married his widow, Gertrude. Hamlet swears to act. He does not kill Claudius until the last scene, and then only as he himself is dying. Readers have argued for four centuries about why. This lesson gives you a way into the argument: look at how Shakespeare builds the play, because the delay is designed.
The situation. Denmark has a new king, a hurried royal wedding, and a threat from Norway. Hamlet, a student called home from Wittenberg, is grieving and disgusted before the Ghost ever appears: his first soliloquy wishes his flesh would melt away and condemns his mother for remarrying within two months. The Ghost gives him a duty; the play asks what a thinking, grieving person does with a duty that demands murder.
Foils. A foil is a character whose situation mirrors another’s so that the differences stand out. Shakespeare gives Hamlet three sons with dead fathers. Fortinbras of Norway wants to avenge his father’s lost lands and marches an army to fight over a scrap of ground. Laertes, whose father Polonius Hamlet kills, returns in a fury and is ready to cut a throat in church. Pyrrhus, in the player’s speech in Act 2, pauses with his sword raised over Priam — and then strikes. Each shows a son who acts. Hamlet, set beside them, thinks. RL.11-12.3 asks you to analyze the impact of an author’s choices about how to develop and relate the elements of a drama. The foils are such a choice: they turn Hamlet’s delay from a personal flaw into a question about what action is worth.
Parallel plots. Three revenge plots run at once — Hamlet’s against Claudius, Laertes’s against Hamlet, Fortinbras’s against Denmark — and one surveillance plot, in which Claudius and Polonius spy on Hamlet through Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Ophelia. The plots collide in Act 5, where almost everyone dies and Fortinbras walks in to take the throne. Map how each plot advances and how each character is used by others.
Reasons for delay the play offers. Hamlet himself suggests several, and they conflict. He doubts the Ghost, which could be a devil in his father’s shape; so he stages a play to test Claudius. He finds Claudius praying and refuses to kill him then, lest his soul go to heaven. He accuses himself of cowardice and of thinking too much — “Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.” Each reason is supported by some evidence and undercut by other evidence. Strong readings do not pick one and ignore the rest; they explain why the play gives several.
Reading the language (L.11-12.4.a). Use context first. Conscience in Shakespeare can mean moral sense, but also consciousness or reflection; the context of “To be, or not to be” supports both. Note such words for Lesson 1.2.
Reading complex text (RL.11-12.10). Read with a public-domain audio recording at first, then alone. Keep a scene log: one line for what happens, one for what Hamlet learns, one quotation.
Your task. Build a character and plot web showing the three foils and the four plots, then annotate one soliloquy for how Hamlet reasons.
Reading: Two soliloquies
William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1.2 and 3.1 (modern spelling) · Public domain
The first soliloquy comes before the Ghost; the second after. What has changed in how Hamlet thinks?
O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them.
Formative check
Work through these before moving on. They are not graded — they tell you, and your teacher, whether the standard below has landed yet.
Fortinbras, Laertes and Pyrrhus all have dead fathers. Before you finish the play: what do you expect Shakespeare uses them for?
Why does Hamlet refuse to kill Claudius when he finds him praying in Act 3?
The play gives a single clear reason for Hamlet’s delay.
Build your character and plot web: the three foils and what each shows about Hamlet; the four plots and where they collide. Then annotate one soliloquy (1.2, 2.2, 3.1 or 4.4) for the steps in Hamlet’s reasoning, and write a paragraph on what it reveals about why he delays.
How confident are you that you can analyze how Shakespeare uses foils and parallel plots to make Hamlet’s delay the play’s subject?