AO2: Act 3 Flashcards
“But with crafty madness, keeps aloof when we would bring him on to some confession.”
“But with crafty madness, keeps aloof when we would bring him on to some confession.”
Guildenstern (3:1) explaining to Claudius that Hamlet is vague when questioned; keeps distance
Devices:oxymoron
“The harlot’s cheek, beautied with plastering art,
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
Than is my deed to my most painted word.
O heavy burden!”
Claudius aside 3:!
As prostitutes hide their faces through makeup, so does Claudius hide his intentions through fancy words; hides the true person
Devices: analogy
‘Slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’
Hamlet Soliloquy 3:1
A linguistic construct typical of Shakespeare. It is an abstract idea made concrete with visual images, and not only visual but quivering with physical action, resulting in a vibrating phrase that could never be dismissed or forgotten
Hamlet is talking about the bad things that happen to us in life as being attacks by this personified ‘Fortune,’ firing at us with deadly weapons. It is part of his reason for wanting to walk away from life
The medieval sling was a frightful weapon, sending a rock whizzing towards you. If it didn’t kill you it would maim you and it would be painful. The pain would be unbearable and drive you crazy. You would probably die later, in great pain, from infection.
Shakespeare transforms human suffering into a graphic, physical image of pain and suffering
Hamlet’s metaphor about death
‘To sleep perchance to dream’
‘The undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveler returns’
Hamlet soliloquy 3:1
Uses the extended metaphor of sleep w/ death
The soliloquy is a logical expression of Hamlet’s thinking on the subject of death. He thinks about all the inconvenient, tedious and unpleasant things about life and fantasises about ending them with a long sharp needle in the heart or brain. (He does not specify which.) It would be so wonderful just to go to sleep – by which he means to die.
He is jolted by the thought that when we sleep we have dreams. Perhaps in that sleep of death, we would have dreams, and what would they be? He can’t answer that, and it frightens him.
This is part of the strong Christian theme that runs through the play. The question is what there is after death, which brings one to the issue of punishment. It is a vision of hell. This is the unknown, the fear of which makes us behave and, as Hamlet says, makes us pause, and eventually bear the bad things we know about in life rather than fly to other kinds of bad things we don’t know about that await us after death.
AO3: Hamlet describes death as ‘the undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveller returns’ (metaphor), which would’ve been controversial at the time as their was a widespread belief in heaven. This reflects the religious confusion at the time with the protestant reformation. if the monarchy cannot decide on a religion how can individuals?
“Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?”
Hamlet to Ophelia 3:1
lashes out at her when he realizes her father is watching as soon as she attempts to return his gifts
Devices: double entendre
AO2: Blunt imperative. The derogatory term ‘breeder’ dehumanises Ophelia, reducing her to the level of livestock. Link between sex and ‘sin’ shows that Hamlet’s imagination continues to be tainted by the thoughts of his mothers incestuous marriage.
lThe line has a derogatory connotation, (“Nunnery” was an Elizabethan slang term for a brothel) implying that Ophelia is already prostituting herself. On the other hand, he may want to preserve her virtue and protect her. Nunnery’s are catholic and so Hamlet may be encouraging Ophelia to get closer to God and away from the immoral realm they are living in.
Hamlet also tells Ophelia that she won’t have children and produce wicked men like his uncle if she becomes a nun.
AO5: Some say that Hamlet’s attitudes towards Ophelia and his mother reveal that he is an idealist who has expectations of what love is.He can’t stand the fact that women have their own sexuality, especially his mother.Others say that Shakespeare’s presentation of the women in the play leaves them with no real option for happiness.The women’s attempts at controlling their own destinies are unsuccessful, and they are ultimately condemned to tragic figures.
“There’s something in his soul o’er which his melancholy sits on brood, and I do doubt the hatch and the disclose will be some danger.”
Claudius to Polonius 3:1
He has just secretly overheard Hamlet’s attack on Ophelia, suspects something strange is going on; decides to send Hamlet to England
Devices: personification of melancholy, metaphor w/ bird hatching egg
AO4: suspicion
“It shall be so.
Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.”
“It shall be so.
Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.”
Claudius to Polonius (end of 3:1)
clever/powerful people are dangerous when mad
Devices: inverted syntax, foreshadows the play, rhyming couplet
AO4: Claudius is suspicous
Who is watching who in 3:2?
The audience is watching Hamlet & Horatio, who are watching Gertrude and Claudius, who are watching the player.
AO3: Spying is a common theme in this play. Elizabethan England was notorious for networks of spies due to religious and political threats - a reflection of England.
“the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as ‘twere, the mirror up to nature;
Hamlet to the players 3:2
The play is going to metaphorically mirror Gertrude and Claudius
Shakespeare also highlighting that Hamlet mirrors many aspect of Elizabethan England (e.g. spies in court, religious uncertainty, no neamed heir etc). Elements of metatheatre.
“Madam, how like you this play?”
“The lady protests too much, methinks.”
Hamlet and Gertrude 3:2
Hamlet obviously makes his mother uncomfortable when he asks her how she is enjoying the play; Gertrude thinks the actress is overdoing it
Devices: double entendre (how like you this play?), inverted syntax
AO4: Implies guilt
How does Claudius show his guilt in 3:2?
He rises and asks for light
‘Give me some light - away!’
AO2: May be an allusion to heaven because he knows he is going to hell
AO4: Guilt
‘How unworthy a thing you make of me!’
‘Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me’
Hamlet to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern 3:2
Hamlet uses the extended metaphor of a pipe/recorder to show that he is aware of Guildenstern and Rosencrantz true intentions.
‘I will speak daggers to her, but use none.’
Hamlet soliloquy 3:2
AO2: Metaphor. Dark Irony - Hamlet is unaware that his visit to Gertrude’s chamber will result in his slaugher of Polonius.
He follows his dead father’s orders to let God judge Gertrude
AO4: Relying on divine justice
‘The cess of majesty dies not alone’
Rosencrantz to Claudius 3:3
Foreshadows the death of the other characters at the end - it all occurs because of Old Hamlets death.
AO3: reference to the body politic, which was a common belief in Elizabethan England - the state was a body by which the Sovereign was the head, therefore the health of the country depended on the health of the monarch.
“Oh, my offence is rank. It smells to heaven.
It hath the primal eldest curse upon ‘t,
A brother’s murder. Pray can I not.”
Claudius soliloquy 3:3
AO4: Confession - He wishes he could wash away his sins, but he is unwilling to part with the fruits of his crime
AO2: biblical allusion - In the Bible, God curses Cain for murdering his brother Abel. By comparing himself to Cain, Claudius acknowledges the severity of his sin and his own moral corruption.In the bible Cain’s most obvious motive is jealousy - was Claudius’ motive also jealousy?
‘What if this cursèd hand Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood? Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens To wash it white as snow?’
Claudius’ confession soliloquy 3:3
AO2: Rheotrical question and allusion to Macbeth
AO4: Claudius wants to rid himself of guilt but he refuses to give up the rewards retained from him crine - ‘I am still possessed of those effecst for which I did the murder: my crown, mine own ambition, and my Queen’ therefore he knows he will not be repented.
What is visually significant about Claudius’ confession soliloquy in 3:3
Claudius in knelt before his private alter, whereas Hamlet is standing behind him. A visual metaphor for Hamlet’s moral, spiritual authority over Claudius.
Ironically Claudius’ prayer does save him - Hamlet doesn’t kill him because he doesn’t want him to go to heaven.
‘My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. Words without thoughts never to heaven go.’
AO2: Rhyming couplet
AO4: motivated to prayer by fear and guilt, not by true repentance
The scene ends on a note of irony as Claudius admits he does not fully repent his crimes. Hamlet would’ve achieved his revenge if he had acted on his frist impulse; justice would’ve been served.
“Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent.”
Hamlet to himself while watching Claudius sit in Confession 3:3
Hamlet decides to kill Claudius when he is doing something sinful rather than while he is praying, expresses his Christian morality. Internal conflict between would he wants to do and what he feels he should do for his father and his honour.
AO2: apostrophe - hesitation, indecision, self-deception
‘You go not till I set you up a glass
Where you may see the inmost part of you.”
Hamlet to Gertrude 3:4
Hamlet mocks her motherly tone, orders her to sit as they talk until he can make her reflect upon her decisions
AO2: metaphor for mirror - forcing her to self-reflect
Gertrude: ‘O what a rash and bloody deed is this!’
Hamlet: ‘A bloody deed. Almost as bad good mother / As kill a king and marry with his brother.’
Hamlet and Gertrude 3:4 (In Gertrudes closet)
AO2: Rhyming couplet, Dramatic tension (this line highlights the deep conflict between Hamlet and his mother, revealing his extreme anger and accusations towards her for her hasty marriage), Symbolism of “killing a king” - by using this phrase, Hamlet is not only condemning Claudius’s actions but also implying that Gertrude betrayed her position as Queen by marrying so quickly.
This leaves us to consider whether Gerturde was unaware of the crime or an accomplice in it
AO5: Many critics have given this scene between Gertrude and Hamlet a Freudian psychoanalysis, suggesting that Hamlet acts in an oedipal nature towards his mother as the scene is sometimes portrayed intimitely.
“Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell.
I took thee for thy better.”
Hamlet to Polonius’ dead body 3:4
AO2: Apostrophe - talking to a dead man - madness? Triplet - shows his disappointment in Polonius, he didn’t want to kill him.
AO4: Incentive - he thought it was Claudius. Motive - Hamlet is fed up of being spied on. Potential punishment for ‘intruding’
‘These words like daggers enter in mine ears’
Gertrude to Hamlet 3:4
AO2: Metaphor
AO4: Gertrude = A vicitm
‘This visitation is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.’
Ghost to Hamlet 3:4 reminding Hamlet to avenge his murder.
AO2: his line serves as a call to action within the play’s narrative.
AO4: Hamlet has a purpose/motive but it is blunted (dulled).
‘This visitation is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.’
Ghost to Hamlet 3:4 reminding Hamlet to avenge his murder.
AO2: his line serves as a call to action within the play’s narrative.
AO4: Hamlet has a purpose/motive but it is blunted (dulled).
“This is the very coinage of your brain”
Gertrude to Hamlet after asking her if she sees the ghost
Metaphor: uses the language of coinage.Hamlet also uses coinage language when he refers to presenting two pictures to his mother as “a counterfeit presentment”
Coinage language is used in Hamlet by William Shakespeareto create a dramatic world and to convey ideas about power, truth, and deception
AO5:
gertrude may not see the ghost because she is innocent or she may be seeing the ghost and trying to conceal her guilt
‘I essentially am not in madness, But mad in craft’
Hamlet to Gertrude 3:4
Reptition from 3:1 when Rosencrantz and Guildensternagree that Hamlets’ is a “a crafty madness.”
AO2: Oxymoronic phrase - admits he is not actually mad
“There’s letters sealed, and my two school-fellows - Whom I will trust as I will adders-fanged…”
3:4
Hamlet says farewell to his mother. He is somewhat prepared for what is to come He tells Gertrude that would trust Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as if they were posinous snakes.
AO2: Recurring motif - biblical sin linking to Claudius
AO4: Betrayal
“How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience’
Claudius aside in 3:1
‘conscience’ creates dramatic irony - the audience knows more that Hamlet does of the truth of Claudius’ crime. The abstract known recalls Hamlets final worlds at the end of the previous scene about ‘catching the conscience of the king’ and foreshadows the events in the next scene with the play.
‘Lash’ Imagery: hearing Polonius tell Ophelia that appearances may disguise an inner ugliness, trigger intense feelings on guilt in Claudius.
AO4: The imagery of ‘lash’ creates connotations of torture, suffering and punishment, providing insight into Claudius’ inner turmoil.
Motif of women wearing makeup to deceive men
Theme of deception in 3:1 - derogatory, dehumanising language towards women.
Claudius: “The Harlot’s cheek, beautied with plast’ring art.” Arguably Claudius is reducing women who used make-up to the status of a prostitute.
Hamlet’s fevered rant at Ophelia: “God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.” condems all women as decievers.
How does Dover Wilson interpret Hamlet’s harsh words towardsOpheliain 3:1?
as’intended for theearsof Claudius and Polonius, whom he knows to be behind thearras’.
Hunting/animalistic imagery in 3:2
Hamlet refers to Claudius as the stricken deer
Hamlet’s soliloquy at the end of the scene: “Now could I drink hot blood” - connotations of primal savagery & blood lust. Hamlet portrays himself as a wild predator.
“For look you howcheerfullymy mother looks and myfatherdied within’s two hours”
Hamlet to Ophelia 3:2 - deliberate hyperbole to make her conduct seem grotesque.
AO5: Hamlet may be using this to unsettle the royal court before the play, which he hopes will prove Claudius’ (and Gertrudes?) guilt. Or he may be trying to misdirect the court intoo believing that his behaviour is the result of his mothers re-marraige rather than Claudius’ murder of his father.
Meta-theatre in 3:2
The ‘play within a play’ is a structural device which had become a key feature of revenge tragedies on the Elizabethan stage after its use in Thomas Kyds ‘The Spanish Tragedy’
The ‘inner play’ (The murder of Gonzago) reinforces the importance of the crime, which lies at the heart of the play and propells all the subsequent action - the murder of Old King Hamlet.
The dramatic parallels of it’s re-enactment lies in the parallels between the actual murder (described by the Ghost) and the theatrical version - the use of poison, the sleeping victim, the gardren setting.
AO4: Hamlet = a detective figure
Allusions to usurpation in 3:2
As the dead King’s only son, Hamlet would be the natural heir to Denmark’s throne. But his uncle, Claudius, secures the crown instead, probably (though unclear) through his marriage to Queen Gertrude.
When Clauidus enters and greets his nephew, Hamlet responds with curious description of being “promised-crammed” perhaps a sarcastic reference to previous promises made about Hamlet’[s succession to the throne.
Hamlet says to Rosencrantz: “I lack advancement.” (i.e. to the kingship)
These references are ambiguous because they are often criptic (Hamlet uses clever riddles). May be another motive for Hamlet’s revenge? Or may be misdirection, leading Claudius and the court to believe Hamlet’s behaviour ids the result of thwarted ambition rather than the knowledge of Claudius’ crime.
Claudius motives
Sololiquy “My crown, mine own ambition, and my Queen.”
“This is hire and salary, not revenge.”
3:3
AO2: Doubling/Heniadays
Hamlet shows his Christian beliefs through his hesitation to kill Claudius while he confesses his sins.
asHamlet puts it, as if Claudius had been hired to kill the king, and his salary, or payment, would be getting sent to heaven.
Carries the possible meaning that Hamlet feels like a hired assassin , employed to take a ‘hit’ and unconcerned about the justice of the act. For the revenge to be complete Claudius’s soul must be “damn’d
“I must be cruel only to be kind”
Hamlet to Gertrude 3:4
Hamlet attempts to justify his behaviour towards his mother, using antithesis to juxtapose ideas of cruelty and kindness to argue that his harsh words are used only to help her save her own soul by examining her conscience.
“To whet thy almost blunted purpose”
Ghost reminding Hamlet of the revenge he needs to take 3,4
Highlights Hamlet’s lack of action - he has a motivation but it is blunted.
Laurence Olivier about Hamlet’s indecision
“This is the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind.”
Final image of act 3
Hamlet tugging the dead body of Polonius out of the room
Reinforced Hamlet’s unpredicatble, extreme and rash behaviour.
