Hamlet 3:4 Flashcards
Where is 3:4 set? Why is this significant?
- ‘The Queen’s closet.’
- her intimate, private space, undertones of female sexuality
How does Lawrence Olivier’s Hamlet present the closet scene?
- 1948
- provocative and freudian (Ernest Jones’ Oedipus essay)
- placed a bed in the closet where most productions don’t
- we are the ghost (its film not stage)
‘Hamlet, thou hast thy…’
‘Mother, you have…’
‘Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.’ - Queen
‘Mother, you have my father much offended.’ - H
- the Queen is talking about Claudius but Hamlet talks of H sr.
- Hamlet is quickly disrespectful, going on to describe her ‘wicked tongue’ and G says ‘Have you forgot me?’
‘Have you…’
‘Have you forgot me?’ - G to H
- “Have you forgotten I’m your mother?”
- H is being disrespectful
‘You are the Queen…’
‘You are the Queen, your husband’s brother’s wife;/ And - would it were not so! - you are my mother.’ - Hamlet to G
- emphasises the incestuous remarriage
- ‘would it were not so! - you are my mother’ (she is his mother though he wishes otherwise)
‘Nay then, I’ll set those…’
‘Nay then, I’ll set those to you that can speak.’ - Gertrude
- attempting to regain her power, will fetch those who can speak with more force
‘Come, come, and sit…’
‘Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge./ You go not till I set you up a glass/ Where you may see the inmost part of you.’ - Hamlet
- Hamlet has the control, is trying to instruct her
- internal stage directions (H lays his hands on her given by her reaction: ‘Help, help, ho!’)
> already gone against what he said - ‘I will speak daggers to her but use none’
‘What wilt thou…’
‘What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?/ Help, help, ho!’ - Gertrude
- her reaction implies Hamlet has become violent in some manner
- the questioning tone of ‘Thou wilt not murder me’ shows the distance between this mother and son
Hamlet’s reaction to realising the presence of someone behind the arras
‘How now! A rat?/ Dead, for a ducat, dead! [Kills Polonius with a pass through the arras.]’
- no reason or sign of deliberation, just acts (doesn’t even identify the person)
- loses the moral ground, blurs the hero-villain line, Laertes will want revenge
- he presumes it is the King - ‘Is it the King?’ - did he kill based on this or because he is jealous of anyone who gets to be in this intimate space with his mother
‘O, what a rash…’
‘O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!’ - Gertrude
- gets to turn the dynamic on Hamlet, he’s lost the morality defence
- however H moves on and turns the conversation back on Gertrude quickly ‘almost as bad […] as kill a King’
‘A bloody deed! - almost as…’
‘A bloody deed! - almost as bad, good mother,/ As kill a king and marry with his brother.’ - Hamlet
- turns the conversation back on Gertrude
- H holds G responsible not C (‘kill a king’)
- she appears shocked at the suggestion: ‘As kill a king!’
‘Thou wretched…’
‘Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!’ - Hamlet once he reveals the man he has murdered is Polonius
- cold response
- circular action, he was spying behind the arras for Ophelia and Hamlet’s conversation earlier
‘Leave wringing…’
‘Leave wringing of your hands. Peace; sit you down’ - H to Gertrude
- believes she is distressed and tries to calm her but she is actually angry (‘thou dar’st wag thy tongue/ In noise so rude against me?’)
- internal stage directions
‘Such an act…’
‘Such an act/ That blurs the grace and blush of modesty’ - Hamlet to G
- ‘blurs’ - morality has been blurred, none of these characters seem truly good
- semantic field of feminine and royal language (‘grace’ ‘blush’ ‘modesty’ ‘rose’ ‘fair’ ‘love’), undertone of lost purity
‘tales off the rose/ From…’
‘takes off the rose/ From the fair forehead of an innocent love,/ And sets a blister there’ - Hamlet to G
- continued feminine semantic field
- ‘rose’ ‘fair’ and ‘innocent love’ refer to G’s relationship with Hamlet Sr. whilst ‘blister’ refers to Claudius
- ‘blister’ is an allusion to pox/syphilis - sexual impurity as well as corruption and disease associated with Claudius
‘makes marriage vows…’
‘makes marriage vows/ As false as dicers’ oaths.’ - H to G
‘O, such a deed…’
‘O, such a deed/ As from the body of contraction plucks/ The very soul, and sweet religion makes/ A rhapsody of words.’ - H to G
- an act that takes the soul from the marriage contract and turns sweet religion into nothing but a collection of words
‘Heaven’s face does…’
‘Heaven’s face does glow/ O’er this solidity and compound mass/ With heated visage, as against the doom -/ Is thought-sick at the act.’ - Hamlet to G
- the sky turns red over the earth as if it is judgement day
- Hamlet has a sort of preaching tone, as if he feels superior to G and knows what heaven would think of Gertrude (‘thought-sick at the act’)
- poetic language
‘Look here upon this…’
‘Look here upon this picture and on this./ The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.’ - Hamlet to G
- internal stage directions (holding up two photos, In Lawrence Olivier’s version he uses two lockets one of Hamlet’s and one of Gertrude’s)
- physical comparison of the two brothers, almost patronising (then moves to character-based comparison)
how does Hamlet describe his father (H sr) in his comparison of Gertrude’s two lovers
- very positive, glorifying language with classical allusions to divinity and heroes
- ‘grace’ ‘Hyperion’s curls’ ‘Jove himself’ ‘eye like Mars’ ‘herald Mercury’ ‘heaven-kissing hill’ ‘give the world assurance of a man’
‘See what grace…’
‘See what grace was seated on this brow;/ Hyperion’s curls; the front of Jove himself;/ An eye like Mars, to threaten and command’ - Hamlet to G about his father
- glorifying, both in terms of who he was and how he was as King (‘threaten and command’)
- internal stage directions: ‘this brow’
- ‘Hyperion’s’ ‘Jove’ ‘Mars’ are all classical allusions to Gods of Roman and Greek mythology (plus ‘Mercury’)
- associating his father with divinity
‘A station like the herald…’
‘A station like the herald Mercury/ New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill’ - Hamlet to G about his father
- placing his father as close to heaven and God (claudius is instead a ‘moor’)
- continued classical allusion (‘Mercury’)
‘A combination and…’
‘A combination and form indeed/ Where every God did seem to set his seal,/ To give the world assurance of a man.’ - Hamlet about H sr.
- hyperbole, presenting H sr. as the ideal man
‘This was your…’
‘This was your husband. Look you now on what follows:/ Here is your husband, like a’ - Hamlet to G
- internal stage directions (‘This was’ ‘Here is’)
- caesura separates Hamlet sr from Claudius
- direct comparison and emphasising the remarriage
