Act 3 Scene 3 Flashcards
Act 3 scene 3 plot summary
Claudius tells rosencrantz and Guildenstern that they must take hamlet to England
Polonius tells Claudius - hide behind areas
Claudius soliloquy
Hamlet comes unseen - wants to kill Claudius but hesitates- if kills now- May go to heaven
Instead, Hamlet decides to wait until a moment he can be certain Claudius will go to hell
Act 3 scene 3 key themes
Secrecy and deception
Polonius’ plan to hide himself in Gertrude’s chamber emphasises his political role at court
Claudius has set in motion the plot to kill hamlet
Act 3 scene 3 form structure and language
Claudius soliloquy -
The king speaks in blank verse as he attempts to pray and unburden his soul in the scene, which is usually played in a chapel because of the prayer like nature of the speech
Staging -
Directors need to make hamlets entrance and Claudius not noticing seem natural
Many modern film directors give hamlet his soliloquy as a voiceover instead
Like the David tenant version
While other onstage versions might have hamlet further away and rely on the audience suspending disbelief
Act 3 scene 3 context
Religion - Claudius trying to pray
Hamlet not killing - religion inspired
Key quotes Act 3 scene 3
‘Nor stands it safe with us/ to let his madness range’
‘His heels may kick at heaven/ and that his soul may be as damn’d and black/ As hell, whereto it goes’
Explain ‘Nor stands it safe with us/ to let his madness range’
Does he actually care about Denmark or is this for his safety only
Explain
‘His heels may kick at heaven/ and that his soul may be as damn’d and black/ As hell, whereto it goes’
Ironic - inability to pray
Imagery of Claudius diving into hell - Hamlets desire for revenge
Wants external soul to suffer - condemn hamlet to a similar fait
Claudius soliloquy
‘O, my offence is rank it smells o heaven’ - biblical story of Cain who killed his brother Abel - first Murder
‘To wash it white as snow’ - Macbeth
‘A brothers murder.’ - pause surprise
‘Forgive me my foul’d Murder?’ Rhetorical question. - struggling
‘My crown, mine own ambition and my queen’ - order of importance, triad
‘My’ - possessive, not going to give it up
‘Wretched’ ‘black’ ‘limed soul’ - trapped and rotting, moral sin
‘Bow stubborn knees’
Hamlets interjected soliloquy
In modern film adaptation - performed as voiceover to explain Claudius doesn’t hear him
In theatre- we have to suspend disbelief
Claudius last line
‘My words fly up, my thoughts remain below
Words without thought never go heaven go.’
The final rhyming couplet - parallelism of 2 lines connecting heavenly and hell
Is below hell or Earth
Irony - hamlet could have killed him
‘O my offence is rank it smells to heaven’
Apostrophe
Olfactory
Guilt
He’s moral
Self disgust
‘The primal eldest curse upon’t,/ a brothers murder
Emphatic
Curse - not his fault
Trying to normalise it - seen as more evil
‘My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,… I stand it pause’
Personification
Plosives
‘Bus’ ‘bound’
Frustration - what to repent for 1st
What if this cursed hand… as snow?
Similar
Hyperbole
Macbeth
Magnified sins
I am still possessed…my Queen
List of 3
Syndetic
Priority - Queen last
What then? What rests?….What can it not?
Rhetorical questions
Caesura
Hestitstion
‘O limed soul’
Apostrophe
Entrapment s
Bow stubborn knees.. new born babe
Plosive
Quote
Dramatic tension is created as Claudius rushes to instigate his plan to send hamlet to England
I like him not, nor stands it safe with us’
Quote
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are sycophantic in their support in their support of Claudius’s plan
‘We will ourselves provide…feed upon your majesty’
Quote
Polonius informs Claudius of hamlets actions in going to his mother’s chamber. He will conceal himself within the room to spy on their conversation
‘Behind the arras.ill convey myself/To hear the process’
Quote
In soliloquy, Claudius struggles with his guilty conscience
O my offence is rank, it smells to heaven
Quote
Observing Claudius seemingly at prayer, Hamlets 6th soliloquy reveals his lack of thirst for revenge as he explored reasons for not taking immediate action against Claudius
‘That would be scared’
‘No’
