The Ghost Flashcards
Horatio doesn’t believe the Ghost’s existence
’ ‘tis but our fantasy, And will not let belief tale hold of him.’
‘ twill not appear.’
- he acts as a chorus as we, like him, have not seen the ghost and are hesitant in believing its truth.
Horatio believes the Ghost’s existence and is fearful
‘It harrows me with fear and wonder… What art thou that usurp’st this time of night.’
The Ghost’s appearance
‘warlike form’
‘Such was the very armour he had on / When he th’ambitious Norway combated’
Julius Cesar reference
Julius Cesar was murder. But before his death ‘the greaves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead / Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets’ and ‘was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.’ Shakespeare’s use of this comparison is both foreboding and it also plants the seed of questioning if Old Hamlet was killed or murdered.
It also refers to authority and the stability of the state.
Their warning: ‘As harbingers preceding s†ill the fates And prologue to the omen coming on, Have heaven and earth together demonstrated Unto our climatures and countrymen.’
Unreliable narration of the Ghost
‘pity me not..’
Identity of the Ghost
‘I am thy father’s spirit’
The Ghost is in Purgatory
‘Doomed for a certain term to walk the night’
The Ghost tells Hamlet to
‘Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.’
Crown importance hierarchy
“Of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatch’d” (I.v.75), which is echoed by Claudius’s “My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen”,
