Hamlet: Death + Mortality

Question 1

‘A

Answer 1

‘All that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity’

Gertrude (A1 S2)
- ‘Must’ = modal verb, inevitability of death
- ‘Passing’ = life on earth small component to the wider life
- ‘Eternity’ = afterlife

Answer 2

‘To die, to sleep; to sleep, perchance to dream’

Hamlet (A3 S1)
- Hamlet debating death, however fears that he will dream when dead, forcing him to face his earthly troubles
- Death is a temporary escapism, fear of the afterlife

Answer 3

‘Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay to her muddy death’

Gertrude about Ophelia (A4 S7)
- ‘Pull’d’ = personifying her clothes, absorbed by nature
- Juxtaposition of ‘melodious lay’ and ‘muddy death’

Answer 4

‘There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow’

Hamlet (A5 S2)
- j

Answer 5

‘The readiness is all’

Answer 6

‘Such a sight as this becomes the field’

Answer 7

‘The gallows-maker, for that frame outlives a thousand tenants’

Other (A5 S1)

Answer 8

‘Making mouths at the invisible event’

Hamlet (A4 S5)
- Fortinbras undermining/mocking death
- Hamlet similarly wishes he could ‘make mouths’ at death