quotes Flashcards
THEMES: action + inaction, madness, corruption, death
MEANING: ACT 3 SOLILOQUY - contemplating suicide - Jorgensen
ANALYSIS: juxtaposing “being” with “not being” repetition, DIACOPE (repeating something close together) - makes it more substantial, showcases the insignificant difference between being and not being - shows life is meaningless
Hamlet: “To be or not to be”
THEMES: SETTING - corruption, poison, honor + revenge
MEANING: noticing that the relationships between royals are inauthentic - mendacity
ANALYSIS: METAPHOR - ROTTEN - at the beginning it is good, at the end there is mold - fruit goes bad
Marcellus: “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”
THEMES: SETTING - corruption, poison, honor + revenge
MEANING: he knows he can’t escape - society/ghost stopping him - has no power
ANALYSIS: METAPHOR - PRISON - brutal, no escape, forced place, his only motivation are laws - crime has been committed - in prison for a crime he didn’t commit but Claudius did - criticising the legitimacy of laws and corruption - POWER OVER YOU
Hamlet: Denmark’s a prison
THEME: gender, feminism, madness
MEANING: she is going mad by what she’s seen - horrified by it
ANALYSIS: DIACOPE
Ophelia: “O, woe is me, / To have seen what I have seen”
THEME: family, corruption, revenge, illusion v reality
MEANING: KIN = family, Claudius is his family but he is not kind
ANALYSIS: PUN - kin, kind - contrasting the ideas
Hamlet about Cladius: A little more kin, and less than kind
THEME: masculinity, madness,
MEANING: can’t be a man and grieve - not masculine
ANALYSIS: unmanly
Claudius: Unmanly grief
THEME: gender, misogyny, feminism critique
MEANING: FRAILTY = weak like a woman, saying that women are weak
ANALYSIS: PERSONIFICATION - addressing frailty - thy = you, direct address
Hamlet: frailty, thy is a woman
THEME: family, corruption, love, revenge, law
MEANING: INCESTUOUS = between family. Claudius and Gertrude are being incestuous because he’s her brother in law - not technically incest but could be morally wrong
ANALYSIS: SHEETS - sexual reference
Hamlet: incestuous sheets
THEME: revenge, corruption
MEANING: he wants to get revenge
ANALYSIS: FOUL - rotten, moldy
Hamlet: Revenge his foul […] murder
THEME: gender, misogyny
MEANING: he’s saying she’s a whore who needs to go a nunnery (where the nuns live, religious place) to get rid of her sin
ANALYSIS: NUNNERY - zoom in on, exclamation mark
Hamlet: get thee to a nunnery!
THEME: madness, mental illness
MEANING: WIT = intelligence, mind - he’s saying going crazy
ANALYSIS: METAPHOR - diseased - rotten - ill
Hamlet: my wit’s diseased
THEME: murder, revenge, corruption
MEANING: deed = an action performed, legal meaning (ownership)
ANALYSIS: METAPHOR - bloody - hostile word, HYPERBOLIC
Hamlet about Claudius’ murder: a bloody deed
THEME: murder, revenge, corruption, family
MEANING: has said to Gertrude that Claudius murdered old Hamlet - saying that he doesn’t see any shock on her face - assuming that she was involved
ANALYSIS: BLUSH = emotion of shame, shock
Hamlet to Gertrude: where is thy blush
THEME: madness, mental illness
MEANING: Hamlet is mad !
ANALYSIS: metaphor - wind makes the sea rough
Gertrude about Hamlet: mad as the sea and wind
THEME: revenge
MEANING: there’s no limit to what he would go to to get revenge
ANALYSIS: BOUNDS - edge of something
Claudius: revenge should have no bounds
