1. The Tragedy of
Hamlet,
Prince of Denmark
William Shakespeare

2. Note
0 This is a condensed version of the original version
shown in the class connect.
0 Please refer to the recording for the full effect!!

3. 0 Click on the websites to check your understanding of Act
1 or just have some fun and learn some trivia!
0 Test-Yourself Reading Quiz on Hamlet (Acts I & II)
0 http://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/quiz/hamquizc
.htm
0 Hamlet Act 1 and 2 test:
0 http://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/story.php?
title=hamlet-act-1-act-2-test

4. Key Ideas and Details
Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting
motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and
advance the plot or develop the theme.
Craft and Structure
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text,
including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of
specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language evokes a sense
of time and place; how it sets a formal or informal tone).

5. GCA VISION: GCA students will emerge as confident leaders in the 21st century
global community through a holistic approach of rigorous academic standards, a
commitment to individualized learning paths, and attention to the growth of each
student as a civic minded contributor both within their local communities and
beyond.
GCA MISSION: Our mission is to provide an exemplary individualized and
engaging educational experience for all students by incorporating school and
community/family partnerships coupled with a rigorous curriculum within a data-
driven and student-centered instructional model. Student success will be measured
by valid & reliable assessment data, parent and student satisfaction, and continued
institutional growth within the academic community.

6. The Tragedy of Hamlet:
Background
•The period in which
Shakespeare wrote is
called the Elizabethan
period. Queen Elizabeth
was the head of the royal
family (1558–1603).
•The queen saw
many of
Shakespeare’s plays
in special court
performances.

7. The Tragedy of Hamlet:
Background
Shakespeare may have used the
Hamlet story—and other plays that
featured murdered kings—to reflect the
concerns of his own time.
To the Elizabethans, social order was
very important, yet there had been
political and religious conflicts before and
during Elizabeth’s rule.
Hamlet depicts a conflict over what to
do when an orderly state is actually
corrupt inside and there seems to be
no civilized answer.

10. The Tragedy of Hamlet: Background
The audience expected to
combine their imagination with
the stage effects before them to
see the play’s action.
Shakespeare’s plays often
contain clues in the dialogue to
indicate time of day or place.
However, the plays often
used dramatic effects, such
as flying actors on a wire
above the stage, as well.

11. HOW DO PLAYS OF THEN COMPARE TO
TODAY’S PLAYS AND THEATERS?

12. THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET:
BACKGROUND
The theater had two
trapdoors. One, above the
stage, allowed the actors to
descend from the heavens.
The other door was on the
stage and often indicated a
doorway to hell.
The ghost in Hamlet entered
the play through the trapdoor
on the stage.

13. The Tragedy of Hamlet,
Prince of Denmark
William Shakespeare

14. The Tragedy of Hamlet: Introduction
There’s something rotten in the state of Denmark . . .

15. The Tragedy of Hamlet: Introduction
Prince Hamlet returns home
from university to discover
that his father is dead and
his mother has married his
uncle Claudius.
And now Claudius
has declared
himself king.

16. The Tragedy of Hamlet: Introduction
As if that’s not bad
enough, the ghost of
his father appears to
Hamlet . . .
He tells Hamlet that he’s
been murdered by Claudius
and demands that Hamlet
get revenge.

17. The Tragedy of Hamlet: Introduction
What should Hamlet do?
Instead of jumping into any
action, Hamlet broods over
his options—
and then starts acting very
strange.

18. The Tragedy of Hamlet: Introduction
He starts talking in
riddles.
He acts cruelly to
Ophelia, a girl who
loves him.
He’s suspicious of
everyone.

19. The Tragedy of Hamlet: Introduction
ASK YOURSELF!
Should he kill his Is he insane? Or
uncle? faking insanity?
Why is Hamlet acting Will he make up his
like this? mind to take action?

20. The Tragedy of Hamlet: Background
The language of the play is unrhymed. This is
called blank verse or now it is called free rhyme.
However, it is based on a pattern called iambic
pentameter.

21. Iambic pentameter
0 A commonly used metrical line in traditional verse and
verse drama.
0 The term describes the particular rhythm that the words
establish in that line.
0 That rhythm is measured in small groups of syllables;
these small groups of syllables are called "feet".
0 The word "iambic" describes the type of foot that is used
(in English, an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed
syllable).
0 The word "pentameter" indicates that a line has five of
these "feet."

22. The Tragedy of Hamlet: Background
Like dance or rock music, iambic pentameter is
based on a beat that is pleasing to the ear.
• It includes an unstressed syllable
followed by an stressed syllable:
“To BE or NOT to BE . . .”
• It matches the sound of a
beating heart: daDUM daDUM

23. The Tragedy of Hamlet: Background
Hamlet is filled with imagery of:
• decay and death
• corruption and
dishonesty
• reality versus unreality

24. Act 1 Scene 1
0 Outside Elsinore Castle in Denmark, Bernardo comes to
relieves Francisco. Bernardo hears a footstep near him and
cries, “Who’s there?” ….. But it is nothing….Bernardo and
prepares to go home and go to bed.
0 what literary elements are these?
0 Bernardo is joined by Marcellus, and Horatio. They discuss the
apparition Bernardo and Marcellus have seen for the past two
nights: the ghost of the recently deceased King Hamlet
0 http://viewpure.com/U-NLnsq3P7Y

25. Act 1 Scene 1
0 Horatio is skeptical, but then the ghost suddenly appears before
the men and just as suddenly vanishes.
0 Terrified, Horatio acknowledges that the ghost looks like the
dead King of Denmark.
0 . Horatio declares that the ghost must bring warning of
impending misfortune for Denmark, perhaps in the form of a
military attack.
0 He talks about the story of King Hamlet’s conquest of certain
lands once belonging to Norway, saying that Fortinbras, the
young Prince of Norway, now seeks to reconquer those
forfeited lands.

26. Act 1 Scene 1
0 The ghost materializes for a second time, and Horatio tries to
speak to it. The ghost remains silent, however, and
disappears again just as the rooster crows at the first hint of
dawn.
0 Horatio suggests that they tell Prince Hamlet, the dead king’s
son, about the apparition. He believes that though the ghost
did not speak to him, if it is really the ghost of King Hamlet, it
will not refuse to speak to his beloved son.

27. Act 1 Scene 2
0 The morning after Marcellus, Bernardo, and Horatio see the
ghost, King Claudius gives a speech to his courtiers.
0 He explains the he recently married Gertrude, his brother’s
widow and the mother of Prince Hamlet. Claudius tells them
that he mourns his brother but has chosen to balance
Denmark’s sadness with the happiness of his marriage.
0 He mentions that young Fortinbras has written to him, boldly
demanding that Denmark give up the lands King Hamlet won
from Fortinbras’s father
0 Calaudius sends Cornelius and Voltimand with a message for the
King of Norway, Fortinbras’s elderly uncle.

28. Act 1 Scene 2
0 Attention is turned to Laertes, Polonius’s son,. Laertes wants to
return to France, where he was staying before his return to
Denmark for Claudius’s coronation. Polonius gives his son
permission, and Claudius grants Laertes his consent as well.
0 Claudius turns his attention to Hamlet and asks why “the clouds
still hang” upon him, because Hamlet is still wearing black
mourning clothes (I.ii.66).
0 Gertrude (Hamlet’s mom) urges him to take off his “nightly
colour,” but he replies bitterly that his inner sorrow is so great
that his dour appearance is merely a poor mirror of it (I.ii.68).

29. Act 1 Scene 2
0 Taking a fatherly tone, Claudius states that all fathers die, and all
sons must lose their fathers. When a son loses a father, he is
duty-bound to mourn, but to mourn for too long is unmanly and
inappropriate. Claudius urges Hamlet to think of him as a father,
reminding the prince that he stands in line to succeed to the
throne upon Claudius’s death.
0 With this in mind, Claudius says that he does not wish for
Hamlet to return to school at Wittenberg (where he had been
studying before his father’s death), as Hamlet has asked to do.
Gertrude echoes her husband, professing a desire for Hamlet to
remain close to her. Hamlet stiffly agrees to obey her.

30. First SoliloquyPg 14-15
O that this too too solid flesh would melt, Let me not think on't, — Frailty, thy name is
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew! woman!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd A little month; or ere those shoes were old
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God! With which she followed my poor father's
body
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Like Niobe, all tears; — why she, even she,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
O God! a beast that wants discourse of reason,
Fie on't! O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden, Would have mourn'd longer, — married with
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in mine uncle,
nature My father's brother; but no more like my
Possess it merely. That it should come to this! father
But two months dead! — nay, not so much, not Than I to Hercules: within a month;
two: Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
So excellent a king; that was, to this, Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother, She married: — O, most wicked speed, to post
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth! It is not, nor it cannot come to good;
Must I remember? Why, she would hang on But break my heart, — for I must hold my
himAs if increase of appetite had grown tongue!
By what it fed on: and yet, within a month,

31. First Soliloquy
0 This quotation, Hamlet’s first important soliloquy, occurs in Act
I, scene ii (129–158).
0 Hamlet speaks these lines after enduring the unpleasant scene
at Claudius and Gertrude’s court,
0 They then being ask him not to return to university at
Wittenberg but to remain in Denmark, presumably against his
wishes.
0 Here, Hamlet thinks for the first time about suicide (desiring
his flesh to “melt,” and wishing that God had not made “self-
slaughter” a sin), saying that the world is “weary, stale, flat, and
unprofitable.”

32. 0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEXp5us1tSE
0 http://viewpure.com/QEXp5us1tSE

33. 0 What he means is suicide seems like a better option to life
in this pain filled world. Hamlet feels that the suicide not
an option for him because it is not allowed in his religion.
0 Hamlet then goes on to describe what is causing his pain
0 his intense disgust at his mother’s marriage to Claudius.
0 He describes how fast they got married, noting that the
shoes his mother wore to his father’s funeral were not
worn out before her marriage to Claudius.
0 He compares Claudius to his father (his father was “so
excellent a king” while Claudius is a bestial “satyr”).

34. 0 As he runs through his description of their marriage, he
touches upon the important motifs of misogyny, by
crying,
0 “Frailty, thy name is woman”; incest, commenting that
his mother moved “[w]ith such dexterity to incestuous
sheets”; and the ominous omen the marriage represents
for Denmark, that “[i]t is not nor it cannot come to good.”
0 Each of these motifs recurs throughout the play.
0 Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or
literary devices that can help to develop and
inform the text's major themes.

35. Motif of Misogyny
0 Shattered by his mother's repugnant decision
to marry Claudius so soon after her husband's
death, Hamlet becomes extremely cynical,
even neurotic, about women in general,
showing a particular obsession with what he
perceives to be a connection between female
sexuality and moral corruption.

36. “Frailty, thy name is woman”
0 This motif of misogyny, or hatred of women,
occurs only sporadically throughout the play,
but it is an important inhibiting factor in
Hamlet's relationships with Ophelia and
Gertrude. He urges Ophelia to go to a nunnery
rather than experience the corruptions of
sexuality and exclaims of Gertrude, "Frailty,
thy name is woman"

37. Act 1 Scene 2
0 Alone, Hamlet states that he wants to die, and wishes that he
could evaporate and cease to exist. He wishes that God had not
made suicide a sin.
0 Beyond upset, he weeps about his father’s death and his
mother’s quick marriage to his uncle. He remembers how
deeply in love his parents seemed, and he curses the thought
that now.
0 Horatio, a friend of Hamlets, comes into the room with
Marcellus and Bernardo. He then tells Hamlet that he, Marcellus,
and Bernardo have seen what appears to be his father’s ghost.
Stunned, Hamlet agrees to keep watch with them that night, in
the hope that he will be able to speak to the apparition.

38. Act 1 Scene 3 & 4
0 In Polonius’s house, Laertes prepares to leave for
France.
0 While saying good-bye to his sister, Ophelia, he warns
her about falling in love with Hamlet. He says Hamlet is
too far above her by birth to be able to love her
honorably.
0 Since Hamlet has to be responsible for his own feelings
and but for his position in the state, it may be
impossible for him to marry her. Ophelia agrees to
think about Laertes’ advice but urges him not to give
her advice that he does not practice himself. Laertes
reassures her that he will take care of himself.

39. Act 1 Scene 3 & 4
0 Polonius says good-bye to his son and gives him advice
0 behave with integrity and be practical
0 to keep his thoughts to himself
0 restrain himself from being impulsive
0 to be friendly to people and not rude.
0 to hold on to his old friends but be slow to embrace new
friends
0 to be slow to quarrel but to fight boldly if the need arises
0 to listen more than he talks
0 to dress richly but not gaudily
0 to refrain from borrowing or lending money
0 and, finally, to be true to himself above all things.

40. Act 1 Scene 3 & 4
0 Laertes leaves, and Polonius is alone with Ophelia.
0 Polonius asks Ophelia what Laertes told her before he left.
0 Ophelia says that it was “something touching the Lord
Hamlet” (I.ii.89).
0 Polonius asks her about her relationship with Hamlet. She
tells him that Hamlet claims to love her. Polonius agrees
with Laertes’ advice, and forbids Ophelia to associate with
Hamlet anymore.
0 He tells her that Hamlet has deceived her in swearing his
love, and that she should see through his false vows and
rebuff his affections.
0 Ophelia pledges to obey.

41. Act 1 Scene 5
0 It is now nighttime
0 Hamlet is watching outside the castle with Horatio and
Marcellus, waiting for the ghost to appear.
0 Shortly after midnight, they hear trumpets and gunfire
sound from the castle
0 Hamlet explains that the new king is spending the night
carousing, as is the Danish custom.
0 Then the ghost appears, and Hamlet calls out to it. The
ghost beckons Hamlet to follow it out into the night. His
companions urge him not to follow, begging him to
consider that the ghost might lead him toward harm.

42. Act 1 Scene 5
0 Hamlet himself is not sure if his father’s apparition is really
the king’s spirit or an evil demon, but he declares does not
care for his life and that, if his soul is immortal, the ghost can
do nothing to harm his soul.
0 He follows after the ghost and disappears into the darkness.
0 Horatio and Marcellus, stunned, declare this is going to have
a bad outcome for the nation.
0 Horatio states that heaven will oversee the outcome of
Hamlet’s encounter with the ghost, but Marcellus says that
they should follow and try to protect him themselves.
0 After a moment, Horatio and Marcellus follow after Hamlet
and the ghost.
0 End of act 1

43. The Tragedy of Hamlet:
Discussion Starters
Discuss (1)
Hamlet is troubled by the marriage of his uncle to
his mother and by his uncle becoming king.
• Who would you expect to be king after Hamlet’s
father dies?
• If Hamlet were your friend, what advice would
you give to him?
• How does power shift in Hamlet’s family after his
father’s death?
Breakout Room – Split both discussions into groups of three – give white tools and monitor rooms

44. The Tragedy of Hamlet:
Discussion Starters
Discuss (2)
Hamlet believes that his father’s ghost is asking
him to get revenge for his murder.
• How would you react in this situation? Why?
• Do you think revenge is a good response to
criminal acts? Why or why not?

45. Book Club
0 If you are interested in joining the GCA book club,
please complete the following survey:

46. Resources
Video Sparknotes
http://viewpure.com/t0CqUTmwKiM
No Fear Shakespeare
http://nfs.sparknotes.com/hamlet/
Hamlet act 1 scene 1
http://viewpure.com/U-NLnsq3P7Y

47. Original Copywriting by Hold,
Rinehart and Winston