Hamlet Essay Plans

Question 1

MISOGYNY

Answer 1

‘If thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them’ (Hamlet to Ophelia)
‘To a nunnery, go’ (Hamlet to Ophelia)
‘Frailty, thy name is Woman’ (Hamlet to Gertrude)

Question 2

Hamlet a disappointing hero

Answer 2

“And am I then reveng’d to take him in the purging of his soul, when he is fit and season’d for his passage” (hamlet about Claudius)
‘I will speak daggers to her, but use none’
“This visitation is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose” (ghost to Hamlet)

Question 3

POWER

Answer 3

‘This bodes some strange eruption to our state.’ (Horatio)
‘My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth’ (Hamlet)
‘Forgive my foul murder? That cannot be, since I am still possessed of those effects for which I did the murder’ (Claudius cant be forgiven as he still king)

Question 4

REVENGE

Answer 4

‘my revenge will come’ (laertes)
“Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder” (Hamlet)
‘A villain kills my father, and for that / I, his sole son, do this same villain send / To heaven’

Question 5

MADNESS

Answer 5

I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on
I know a hawk from a handsaw. -His words imply that, just as the wind only occasionally blows from the north-north-west, so too is he only occasionally struck by madness. “I know a hawk from a handsaw,” Hamlet is warning his companions that he can tell the difference between a friend and an enemy
‘Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it. Who does it then? His madness. ‘ - Hamlet to Laertes doesn’t take responsibility for death of Polonius - says he was mad - 3rd person - personifies madness

Question 6

MORALITY

Answer 6

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man. (polonius to laertes telling him to be true to himself
‘something is rotten in the state of Denmark’

Question 7

Ophelia’s madness/suicide

Answer 7

“promised to wed me”
“So would I have done, by yonder sun, an thou hadn’t not come to my bed” (Ophelia singing) - Hamlet breaking his promise - ideas of virtue - saying they would marry is they hadn’t had sex
‘but long it could not be till that her garments, heavy with their drink, pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay to muddy death’.

Question 8

WOMEN

Answer 8

‘I would not, in plain terms, have you so slander any moment leisure, as to give words or talk to the Lord Hamlet. I shall obey my lord’ (Polonius to Ophelia)
‘frailty, thy name is woman!’
‘Do not believe his vows, for they are brokers’ (Polonius to Ophelia)
‘if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them.’ (Hamlet to Ophelia)

Question 9

DEATH

Answer 9

To be or not to be, that is the question: whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles’
‘And for his passage, the soldiers’ music and the rites of war speak loudly to him’ - Hamlet is afforded the death of a soldier
‘Pray can I not, though inclination be a sharp as will, my stronger guilt defeats my strong intent’ (Claudius soliloquy)

Question 10

VIOLENCE

Answer 10

‘[Thrusts his rapier through the arras]’ (Murder of P)
‘He should those bearers put to sudden death’ (Murder of R and G)
‘[Grappling with (Hamlet)]’ (Laertes and Hamlet fight in O’s grave)
‘Cut his throat i’th’church’ (Laertes about Hamlet)

Question 11

FAMILY

Answer 11

‘Hamlet, thou hast your father much offended’ ‘Mother, you have my father much offended’
‘So excellent a king, that was to this Hyperion to a satyr’ (Hamlet about father)
‘My too much changed son’

Question 12

religious duty

Answer 12

‘If this had not been a gentle woman, she would have been buried out of Christian burial’
Conscience does make cowards of us all. (hamlet choosing not to kill himself)

Question 13

duty to state

Answer 13

‘If thou art privy to thy country’s fate- which, happy, foreknowing may avoid- O, Speak!’
‘His own choice depends the sanctity and health of the whole state’ (Laertes to Ophelia)
‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark’ (Marcellus)
‘I do prophesy the election lights on Fortinbras: he has my dying voiced’

Question 14

Gertrude’s lack of duty

Answer 14

‘Hamlet, though hast your father much offended’
‘Mother, you have my father much offended’
‘O wicked wit and gifts that have the power so to seduce! my most seeming virtuous queen” (ghost)
“I doubt it is no other but the main, his father’s death and our o’erhasty marriage.” (Gertrude)

Question 15

Ophelia’s filial duty

Answer 15

‘I would not, in plain terms, have you so slander any moment leisure, as to give words or talk to the Lord Hamlet’ ‘I shall obey, my lord’

Question 16

Hamlet’s filial duty

Answer 16

‘you must know that your father lost a father, that lost a father, lost his and the survivor bound in filial obligation’
‘Revenge his foul and most unjust murder’
‘I forgot myself for by the image of my cause I see the portraiture of his’ (Hamlet realising Laertes wants the same revenge as him)

Question 17

ESPIONAGE

Answer 17

At such a time I’ll loose my daughter to him. Be you and I behind the arras then (Polonius to Claudius)
‘Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may lay the fool nowhere but in’s own house.’ (Hamlet)
‘Behind the arras I’ll convey myself to hear the process’ (Polonius)