Theatre / Appearance Vs Reality

Question 1

Hamlet on Acting Grief in Scene 2, Act 1

Answer 1

‘These indeed seem, for they are actions that a man might play, but I have that within which passes show - these but the trappings and the suits of woe.’

Question 2

Horatio’s summary of play in act 5 scene 2

Answer 2

‘So shall you hear/Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,/Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,/Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause’

Question 3

Theatre: Very end of act 2, scene 2

Answer 3

‘The play’s the thing Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King’

Question 4

POLONIUS about acting to disguise the devil 3.1

Answer 4

‘It’s too much proved, that with devotion’s visage, and pious action, we do sugar o’er the devil himself’

Question 5

Hamlet to Ophelia about paintings 3.1

Answer 5

‘I have heard of your paintings well enough. God hath given you one face and you make yourselves another[…] It hath made me mad.’
APPEARANCE VS REALITY

Question 6

3.2 Shakespeare has his title character explain to a group of actors that the “purpose of playing” is…

Answer 6

“to hold as ‘twere the mirror up to nature: to show virtue her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.” In other words, Hamlet proposes that what is seen onstage reflect what is real in our lives and in our world.