Act 3 Scene 2 Flashcards
Plot summary
Hamlet meets with actors and instructs first player hoe to delivery speech
Hamlet sexually insults Ophelia with innuendo
Players come onstage and perform
Gertrude - loving wife who is reluctant to remarry but does
When poison in ear - Polonius calls for light and everyone except Hamlet and Horatio exist
Hamlet takes the king’s exit and disturbance as proof of his guilt
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern tell Hamlet to speak to mum
Hamlet alone on stage - soliloquy
Will be cruel but not unnatural
In speaking with mother will be cold and heartless but will not injure her
Key themes Act 3 scene 2
Acting and deception
- the player is told how to deliver an effective, dramatic speech- how to pretend well
Appearance and reality
-players performs act of murder we did not see at beginning of play
Revenge
Hamlet uses play as means to make Claudius confess
Act 3 scene 2
Form structure and language
Prose
Hamlet speaks to players in prose as they are lower status then he is so he communicates with them using their style
Play within a play
Act 3 scene 2
Context
Stagecraft - the comments Hamlet makes on how to deliver the speech gave a comic irony onstage, as he describes the way a bad actor can ruin a good speech
Act 3 scene 2
Key quotes
‘Hamlet; these words are not mine’
‘No, not mine now.’
Hamlet and Ophelia sexual inuendo
Sexual innuendo
‘Country matters’ - sex
Lying in her lap
Ophelia appears shocked from her exclamation
‘I think nothing’ -stop him from thinking as she is embarrassed or flirting?
‘You are merry’- embarrasses or encourages
Hamlet dismiss women ‘jig-maker’. Gertrude is half despite recent windowing
Jibe back to mourning clothes in Act 1 when hamlet says ‘the devil wear black’
Hamlet says man should built a church and maintain his memory m, for he can’t trust a woman to do it
Final comment sexual innuendo
‘It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge’
Why is hamlet so specific with his instructions for the actors
Perfect- catch Claudius reaction
Lengthy description - wants it to go perfect
Feeling/atmosphere- tension as Hamlet is tense - nothing can go wrong
‘Herod’- presented as loud mouthed tyrant in midieval mystery plays - like Polonius
Also potrayedbas violent - murder of innocent kids - Claudius
Hamlets speech to Horatio
Hamlets attitude towards superficial flattery
People flatter for money
‘What advancement may I have from thee/ that no revenue hast’
Hamlets speech to Horatio
Hamlets attitude towards horatios qualities
‘In all suffering suffers nothing’ - doesn’t show suffering - balancer
‘Not passion’s slave’ - moral and rational
From hamlets instructions we can infer that he has previously discussed ghosts revelation with Horatio
What instructions does he give Horatio
‘Observe mine uncle’
Appearance v telisru
‘I must be idle’ - crazy but is acc intelligent
Hamlets dialogue with Ophelia
Hamlets use of language towards Ophelia
Crude annotations
‘Country matters’
‘Lie between maids legs’
‘Your only jug makers’
—>antic disposition. She = victim
Hamlets dialogue with Ophelia
Hamlets use of language towards Ophelia
Bitter subtext
‘Look how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within these two hours’
What brought up hamlets anger towards women and give eg of hiid anger
Ophelia and mothers betray
O- ‘it’s brief my lord’
H- ‘as women’s love’
How play without play portrays Queen and implications for Gertrude
‘None wed the second but who killed the first’ - implies Gertrude knew - mainly monosyllabic
