Well I liked that play all the way up until the Fifth Act. Well perhaps until the end of the Fourth, when Ophelia dies. I think the biggest turnoff concerning Shakespeare for me is all the death. Why does everyone have die in most of his plays? Romeo and Juliet is another good example of this. Ophelia’s death was unnecessary. Laerte’s death was unnecessary. As was Gertrude’s. I kind of predicted that Hamlet would die even thought it is slightly unnecessary and I hoped that he wouldn’t. I don’t understand why the tangent about Yorrick and his death was necessary. The only person whose death I can see as necessary or helpful in moving along the plotline is Claudius because Hamlet Senior mandated to Hamlet Junior that Claudius had to die to avenge Hamlet Senior’s death. And Hamlet was robbed of truly killing him anyway which seems extraodinarily unfair because not only does he have his father to avenge throughout the whole book but also now Gertrude’s death and pretty much his own as well because Claudius masterminded the whole duel idea and pushed for it to occur. And I say truly killing because yes, Hamlet did stab Claudius with a poisoned rapier, but he didn’t truly kill him because Claudius chugged the same wine that killed Gertrude and took the easy way out. He didn’t wait around to bleed out or to feel the effects of the poison as Hamlet did (i like the phrase Hamlet uses to describe the feeling “The potent poison quite o’ercrows my spirit”, especially the little rhyme).

The other thing I dislike about everyone dying was how unrealistic the timeline was. The queen drinks the poison and falls fourteen lines later and proceeds to die nine lines after that (twenty three lines total). Laertes is stabbed with the poisoned blade and falls thirteen lines later and dies twenty lines after that (thirtythree total). Meanwhile, Hamlet forces the king to drink the poison and the king dies instantaneously, and Hamlet lives longer than all of them, even after being stabbed with the poisoned blade AND drinking from the posioned cup. (Fiftysix lines total after being stabbed and fourteen lines total after drinking from cup). It just makes no sense.

Looking back, Hamlet’s madness seems slightly unecesary as well. I mean in the long run it didn’t help him kill his uncle and it never seemed like he had a plan to avenge his father in which madness played an intergral part. (in retrospect, it never seemed like he had a clear plan at). his madness only created more problems for him and screwed up any chance at happiness he had with Ophelia.

Lastly, there was one line that I particularly liked from this act and it was “Hamlet: Why, man, they did make love to this employment!”, referencing the reason he sent them to their death. I like the way it ties into the idea of his obsession with sex (and not just between his mother and his uncle). His uncle had to die for his transgression (making love to Hamlet’s mother… oh, and for killing his father) and now Rosencrantz and Guildenstern must die for their crime, making love to their job of spying on Hamlet.

One of the things that stuck out to me in Act 4 was Hamlet’s letter to Claudius. In it he says “You shall know I am set naked upon your kingdom” which was interesting given how much we talked about Hamlet’s obsession with the sexual aspect of Gertrude’s and Claudius’s relationship. Even subconciously, he cannot ignore this glare evil in his mind.

The other “sexytime” moment that was glaringly obvious was Ophelia’s reference (perhaps?) to her relationship with Hamlet. Her father’s concern over her maidenhead clearly was too late. “Quoth she, ‘Before you tumbled me,  You promised me to wed.’ / He answers: / ‘So would I ha’ done, by yonder sun,  An thou hadst not come to my bed.” Marriage was her father’s other concern. He recognized that Ophelia could never marry into royalty (or could she? — Hamlet isn’t big on conforming) Although, thinking about that, I believe I commented earlier on how Laertes’s remarks seemed more directed toward royalty as a whole while Polonius’s comments seemed to be largely anti-Hamlet, so maybe Polonius saw a little bit of Hamlet’s unpredictibility early on and thought that Hamlet might just be crazy enough to try and marry Ophelia. But anyway there two other things about her little speech that I thought were even more inciteful to Ophelia’s mind. A) The thought train of how she goes from talking about her true love (“How should I your true-love know/ from another one?”) to her father (“He is dead and gone, lady, / he is dead and gone; / At his head a grass-green turf, / at his heels a stone.”) to flowers (“Larded all with sweet flowers”) back to her true love (“… did not go / With true-love showers.”) She switches interchangeably between talking about her father and her truelove (Hamlet? … I do believe so.) which leads me to believe that she isn’t mourning her father as much as Hamlet and her references to ‘dead and gone’ are talking about Hamlet’s departure to England; He is dead (emotionally dead/devoid because he’s crazy now or perhaps mentally since her father forced her to cut him out of her life, like those mafia movies where the boss always says to the black sheep son “you are dead to me now”) to her and now gone. And the other thing was her sing-song stanza before she mentions tumbling and marriage, she goes “Then up he rose, and donned his clo’es, / And dupped the chamber-door / Let in the maid, that out a maid / Never departed more.” Did he leave her bed for a chambermaid’s? How dare he! Was this before his craziness or after? When did she find out? This begs more questions than it answers. *Revision* As soon as I finished this post and went back and read it all I realize now that she means he put on his clothes and opened the door, letting in the maid (chambermaid) and the maid (maiden i.e. virgin) never departing is in fact Ophelia. That seems a more plausible interpretation of this passage.

Act Four — “King: Laertes, was your father dear to you? / Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,  A face without a heart?” Act One — “Hamlet: Seems, madam? Nay, it is. I know not “seems.” / …. I have that within which passeth show — / These but the trappings and the suits of woe.” …………………. Interesting. Contrasts a little with Gertrude and Claudius’s lack of sorrow? The recurring image of real v. feigned sorrow

OPHELIA IS NOT ALLOWED TO DIE IN THIS BOOK. i reject that hypothesis of reality.

Ophelia lives on.

What I Like:

• “Guildenstern: Nor do we find him forward o be sounded, / But with a crafty madness keeps aloof” — I llke how everyone constantly refers to Hamlet as crafty. It makes me think of a fox. Hamlet is a crafty fox (in my mind’s eye). Not to mention that I’m sure Ophelia would a agree with me. Although she would probably use foxy instead of fox. But close enough.
• Sidenote to this, Hamlet says “But I will delve one yard below their mines / And blow them at the moon. O, ’tis most sweet / When in one line two crafts directly meet.” The whole quote is sweet but the last line reminds me of the old proverb ‘kill two birds with one stone’. Exactly same sentiments actually, but I like Hamlet’s phrase-age better because it uses the work craft. Like crafty. It just tickles me pink.
• “H: Where’s your father? / O: At home, my lord. / H: Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but in’s own house. Farewell” Hamlet clearly knows that Polonius is hiding behind the pillar or somewhere nearby. And he calls him a fool to his face. and to Ophelia’s face. (he’s cheeky on the first count, stupid on the second — it does him no good to push Ophelia any further away than he already has) Polonius doesn’t really think this scheme through well because if he has instructed Ophelia to deny him any access to her (to which I can only assume Hamlet caught on to fairly easily) then it will be out of the ordinary that Ophelia just happens to walk by, all alone. Hamlet has to be suspicious of this all-too-opportune moment. Silly Polonius.
• Polonius hides behind the curtain to protect the queen and ends up being run through when he yells for help. Ironic.
• I’m realizing that Polonius happens to be quite terrible at scheming, despite his numerous attempts.
• “H: Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring? / O: ‘Tis brief, my lord / H: As woman’s love” Gotta love Hamlet’s one-liners. Although I don’t particularly like his dismissive attitude towards women.
• Other one-liner that’s pretty great = “G: Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended / H: Mother, you have my father much offended.” I love how both use the word father and it would seem the mean the same person, but in truth Gertrude is referring to Claudius while Hamlet deflects her charge and takes a swipe right back at her, referencing his dead father.
• I also love how despite everything, Ophelia still tries to keep him in check. “H: … For look you how / cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died / within’s two hours O: Nay, ’tis twice two months, my lord” She firmly reminds him that is been (if not reasonable) at least borderline and that he cannot keep on whining and complaining about life. Get over it.

What Annoys Me:

• Guildenstern and Rosencratz clearly are not good friends. Good friends do not plot with one’s parents. I’m glad, however, that Hamlet recognizes this by the end of the scene, and says it with such vivid imagery, “I will trust as I will adders fanged”
• “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 by opposing end them. To die — to sleep –” …………. the literary world needs to get over itself. this soliquoy is not that fabulous. i do not understand the big to-do about “To be, or not to be, that is the question”. I liked the end part better where he finally takes note of Ophelia but even that isn’t truly noteworthy.
• On one hand, Claudius is condemning himself because he feels so guilty about his killing his brother after the play (but not guilty enough to consider giving up his ill-gotten gains) but on the other hand, he is plotting to kill Hamlet as well. Will anyone ever learn from history?

Welll. Act 2 was interesting.

opinions:

Polonius is a shady creep. He needs to follow the advice he gave his son and lay off the inter-family spying. Not to mention giving Reynaldo free license to spread (false?) rumors about his son. Nasty. I know we talked in class a little about how Polonius seems to change later in the scene with Ophelia and appears to genuinely care about her and the situation with Hamlet. I actually disagree with that. I was kind of surprised to hear that perspective. It seemed like Polonius was all too eager to distance himself from Hamlet and the royalty earlier and now he goes running to them? (Assumption: Polonius is in cahoots with the king and perhaps has knowledge of the elder Hamlet’s demise) He seems to be distancing his family from just Hamlet, not the royal family. It came off to me as if Hamlet’s “ecstasy of love” might gain him kudos with the king for a) figuring out what was wrong and b) giving the king an excuse or a reason or ideas even on how to off Hamlet.

I suppose I’ve assumed that is Claudius’s main purpose in the play and that all his supporting characters (Gertrude, Polonius, etc.) are there to conspire with him. I mean honestly, the first rule of all murders-well-performed is to also murder anyone who could possibly avenge the deceased (ESPECIALLY the children). There are like what? twenty thousand clique medieval “novels” about that. but I digress.

Anyhow, Polonius has already plotted much in the play and I can only see him getting further tangled in the web he weaves.

Ophelia: Seems a little unintelligent. If she loves Hamlet, I don’t understand how she can completely cut him out of her life. Granted, her father is a little scary and at times a little pushy, but still, many girls have accomplished visits to their lovers on the sly. And if she Knows her father doesn’t like her connection to Hamlet, why does she instantly run to him with Hamlet’s confession? She is portrayed as an intelligent girl so she cannot be completely unaware of her father’s rampant scheming. Informing him of every little detail only provides him with fodder for his cannon. (His cannon which may or may not eventually bring Hamlet down.) This is an important scene though, at least to me. Hamlet is confessing his undying love, recognizing that he must sacrifice Ophelia in his life to avenge his father not being in his life. I feel that he’s abandoning the present a little too much and living in the past. Avenging his father is all well and good, but if he trusts Ophelia enough to have a modicum of hope that she will remain faithful to him, despite the passing of time and his apparent madness, he should trust her enough to know that he can tell her the full story and she will understand. But then again, I can see why he wouldn’t, granted that she runs to daddy with everything detail. I want to know more about her character before I pass final judgment.

Rosencranz, Guildenstern: blah, blah, blah. they’re boring. and bad friends. they can’t give Hamlet a straight answer about why they’re there. if they were good friends, even good friends responding to a third-party call for help, they would be up-front about it.

Hamlet: love him. Love him. the conversations between him and Polonius had me cracking up because of the sheer bizarre-ness of it all. favorite lines: 1) “excellent well. you are a fishmonger” 2) “P: what do you read, my lord?” H: “words, words, words” 3) “buzz, buzz!” 4) and one of the best of my favorites, “P: this is too long. H: It shall to the barber’s, with your beard.”. the only quasai-adequate word i can use to describe is cheeky. or maybe audacious. but i like the ring of cheeky better.

Players: Rather boring. Not a bad as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Hamlet finds them engaging so I can only assume he has a scheme in mind. Greek mythology references in their lines were interesting.

Hamlet isn’t so bad? Thus far I haven’t been too thrilled with Shakespeare’s work. I know he’s like a god in the literary world but for some reason I mostly have disliked his works. Romeo and Juliet is too popular almost, going into it I knew everything that was going to happen and it got really boring really quickly. I couldn’t buy into the fairies and the magic flowers and the men with donkey’s heads in a Midsummer’s Night Dream. I didn’t particularly like Much Ado About Nothing until I saw the movie. But perhaps, just maybe Hamlet has some potential.

I like the mystery. Guessing at the politics of the Danish Court, how each character’s desires and motives interact. Claudius = bad man, in my opinion. Gertrude is a bit sketchy too. It shall be interesting to see how Hamlet gets his revenge on his uncle for killing his father. I know that the ghost asked Hamlet not to harm his mother, but I don’t think that Hamlet is going to stop himself at taking down just half of the evil duo. Plus, if his mother is incestuously in love with his uncle, then there is no way that he can take down his uncle without at least emotionally hurting his mother. Will there be a consequence from the ghost if he harms his mother? And I also wonder if his mother knows of Claudius’s actions or if she is blindly accepting Hamlet Senior’s death without questioning the coincidentalness. How far will Polonius go to protect the couple? Because he is clearly involved in someway. aka a major way. I think he’s a big behind the scenes player, tying up loose ends and performing Claudius’s dirty work. Which is why he’s so adamant against Hamlet and Ophelia becoming romantically involved. I think it was interesting that Polonius seemed dead set against Hamlet personally whereas Laertes was just cautioning his sister against the dangers of being involved with royalty.

All will be told in time.

One thing, I have to say though, that puts me off this play is the ghost issue. It’s just ridiculous. I get that people were superstitious way back when but seriously. Let’s think of a plausible way for Hamlet to learn of his fathers death… You are Shakespeare, afterall, clearly you have a few creative, imaginative braincells.