Indecision + contemplation Flashcards
Hamlet says that claudius is a bad king who ‘soils our addition’
‘from that particular fualt: the dram of eal/doth all the noble substance of a doubt/ to his own scandal’
meaning one fault can overwhelm all positive attitudes of a person
- literal meaning of hamartia of aristotles tragedy the heroine or tragic hero has one flaw
‘is it not monstorus that this player here,/ but in fiction, in a dream of passion could force his soul so to his own conceit’’
for hecuba?
what is hecuba to him and he to her,/ that he should weep for her’
he’s frustrated at himself ‘what a rogue and peasant slave am I’ ‘What would he do / had he the motive and that for passion that i have’
‘he would drown the stage with tears’
‘Am I a coward?”
‘must like a whore unpack my heart with words and fall a-cursing like a very drab’ (talk myself into doing something like a whore does)
‘to be or not to be - that is the question’
contemplating again instead of taking action
questio’- a scholarly way of approaching the topic of death and suicide.
‘thus conscience does make cowards/ and thus the native hue of resolution’
‘is now ‘sicklied over with the pale cast of thought’
‘is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens/ to wash it white as snow’
again admitting guilt of having ‘brothers blood’ on his hands.
‘may one be pardoned and retain th’offence?’
‘my words fly up my thoughts/ remain below’
asking if he can be forgiven if he still reaps the benefits
he can not give up the things he has gained therefore he would rather maintain the crown than be forgiven still overpowered by greed
isn’t really praying or confessing because he doesn;t mean any of it
‘now i might do it. But now ‘a is a praying’ ‘
but - he still hesitates at a clear and perfect oppurtunity
decides he wants ‘his soul may be damned and black as hell whereto it goes’ but his talk of killing him when ‘in th’incestous pleasures of his bed’ and cutting it short by saying ‘my mother stays’ there is that oedipus complex and the fact that he’d feel more anger and oppurutnity at that moment says a lot about his repressed feelings.
hamlet compares himself to fortinbras who ‘go to gain a little patch of ground / that hath no profit but the name’
and doesn’t understand why he who ‘hath the strength and means/to do’t’ doesn’t take action
talking himself into it again
‘death and danger dare/ even for an eggshelll’
‘rightly to be great’ ‘to find quarell in a straw /when honours at stake.’ i.e to be great you need to be honourable
compares himself ‘ how stand I then/ that have a father killed and a mother stained’
ophelias mad words spark contemplaton
‘her speech is nothing’ yet those who hear it ‘botch the words up fit to their own thoughts’
when laertes comes for revenge he is decisive and even threatens to give up his throne is he is involved in polonius’ murder but wasn’t able to give it up when praying
his decisivenes if ‘they find us touched, we will our kingdom give’
‘there is no good or bad but thinking makes it so’
thinks are the products of your own thoughts
act 4 scene 6 Horatio reads letter from Hamlet saying hes back and he speaks of his bravery and decisiveness
‘in the grapple i broaded them’ ‘i alone became their prisoner’ - he jumped off the ship sailing to london to fight the pirates
