Monday

 

 Today we finish Act 5 and give you some time to work on the study questions.

   HAMLET ACT 5: Questions

1)    What do you feel is the point of the gravedigger’s riddles and song?  How does it fit into the play?

2)  In what ways do Hamlet’s reactions to the skulls in the graveyard seem to suggest a change in his outlook?  Compare Hamlet’s attitude towards Yoric to Hamlet’s attitude to Ophelia or even his father?  How is it different?    How is it similar?

3)    How old is Hamlet?  How do you know this?

4)    What does the violent argument between Hamlet and Laertes add to the play?

5)    What developments in Hamlet’s character are presented through the story of what happened on the boat?  How has Hamlet changed?

6)    How do Hamlet’s motives in killing Claudius seem to have shifted according to his speech beginning “Does it not, think thee…”  

7)    What concerns of the play are reinforced in the Osric episode?  

8)    Why does Hamlet ‘defy augury’?  

9)    What does Laertes say is his motive in still resenting Hamlet?  How has already lost this?  How does this contribute to the presentation of revenge in the play?  

10) How might the dying lines of Gertrude, Claudius and Laertes be viewed as typical of the way their characters have been presented throughout the play?

11)  Who “wins” in Hamlet?  How and why do you think this?

 

 

REVIEW GUIDE FOR HAMLET

 

1)      The following characters are dramatic foils for Hamlet.  Discuss in detail how?

 

a)     Claudius

 

 

b)    Gertrude

 

 

c)     Laertes

 

 

d)    Ophelia

 

 

e)     Polonius

 

 

f)     Fortinbras

 

 

2)    Compare and Contrast Fortinbras, Hamlet and Laertes.  What do they have in common?  How are they different?

 

 

 

 

 

 

3)    Give an example of an extended metaphors and discuss what is being compared

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4)    Give two examples of symbols and discuss how they work in Hamlet.

 

5)    Give at two examples of allusions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6)    Give a description of the following characters:

 

Ghost:

 

 

Gertrude:

 

 

 

Claudius:

 

 

 

Ophelia:

 

 

 

Polonius:

 

 

 

Reynaldo:

 

 

 

Horatio:

 

 

 

Guildenstern:

 

 

 

Osric:

 

 

 

7)    Outline the plot of Hamlet according to the six elements: Exposition, Inciting Event, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, Resolution.  Make sure you specifically name the inciting event, the climax and the resolution.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8)    What is a fishmonger?  Who are the fishmongers in the play?  How are why are they fishmongers?

 

 

 

 

 

9)    Explain the quote: “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10) Who is Jephthah?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11) What is the continuous pun on sun?  Discuss how Shakespeare and Hamlet use it.  Give some examples.

 

 

 

 

 

12) Why does Ophelia die?  Do you think her death was accidental or suicide?  Why?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

13) What is one statement about Humanity that Hamlet makes?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

14) What does the following quote mean:

 

“Alexander died, Alexander was buried/ Alexander returneth to dust;/ dust is earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam whereto/ he was converted might they not stop a beer barrel?/ Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,/ Might stop a hole to keep the wind away./ O, that that earth which kept the world in awe/ Should patch a wall t’ expel the winter’s flaw.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

15) What is odd about the following quote: “A bloody deed; almost as bad, good mother as kill a king and marry with his brother.”

 

 

 

 

16) Who wins in Hamlet?  Why?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

17) What is the point of the gravedigger’s riddles and songs?  How is the gravedigger a bit like Hamlet?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

18) Why does Claudius need to justify his marriage in Act 1?

 

 

 

 

For the following questions—Name the speaker, the person being spoken to, and discuss what is being said.

 

19) “Your bait of falsehood take this carp of truth/ And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,/ with windlasses and with assays of bias,/ By directions find directions out.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

20) “And the more pity that great folk should have coint’nance in this world to drown or hang themselves more than their even-Christian.  Come my spade.  There is no ancient gentlemen but gard’ners, ditchers, and grave-makers.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

21) “Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me!  You would play upon me, you would seem to know my stops, you would pluck out the heart of my mystery, you would should me from my lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak.  ‘Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

22)  “Affection, puh! You speak like a green girl/ Unsifted in such perilous circumstance./ Do you believe his “tenders” as you call them?”

 

 

 

 

 

23) Discuss the meaning of the following soliloquy—be exact and completely examine the passage.  Leave nothing out.   (This question is worth 20 points)

 

“How all occasions do inform against me

And spur my dull revenge.  What is a man

If his chief good and market of his time

Be but to sleep and feed?  A beast, no more.

Sure He that made us with such large discourse,

Looking before and after, gave us not

That capability and god like reason

To fust in us unused.  Now whether it be

Bestial oblivion or some craven scruple

Of thinking too precisely on th’ event

(A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom

And ever three parts coward), I do not know

Why yet I live to say, “This thing’s to do,”

Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means

To do’t.  Examples gross as earth exhort me:

Witness this army of such mass and charge,

Led by a delicate and tender prince,

Whose spirit with divine amibition puffed

Makes mouths at the invisible event,

Exposing what is mortal and unsure

To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,

Even for an eggshell.  Rightly to be great

Is not to stir without great argument,

But greatly to find quarrel in a straw

When honor’s at the stake.  How stand I, then,

That have a father killed, a mother stained,

Excitements of my reason and my blood,

And let all sleep, while to my shame I see

The imminent death of twenty thousand men

That for a fantasy and trick of fame

Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot

Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,

Which is not tomb enough and continent

To hide the slain?  O, from this time forth

My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth!