Key Literary Devices and Hamlet Plot Analysis
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Essential Literary Terms and Dramatic Devices
Figures of Speech and Irony
- Irony: A contrast between expectations and reality.
- Verbal Irony: A comment where a character says one thing but means something else.
- Situational Irony: When one thing is expected but something unexpected occurs.
- Dramatic Irony: The audience knows more than the character does.
- Paradox: An apparent contradiction that is somehow true.
- Conceit: A fanciful figure of speech connecting dissimilar things (often an extended metaphor).
- Allusion: A reference to a person, place, or event from history, literature, or politics.
Poetic Forms and Structure
- Sonnet: A fourteen-line lyric poem in iambic pentameter.
- Turn (Volta): The point in a sonnet with a change in tone or argument.
- Blank Verse: Lines in unrhymed iambic pentameter.
Tragedy Terminology
- Tragedy: A narrative where the main character comes to an unhappy end.
- Tragic Hero: A character who suffers death or great downfall.
- Tragic Flaw (Hamartia): A weakness in a protagonist that leads to downfall. Hamartia is the Greek word for this flaw.
- Catharsis: The emotional cleansing the audience experiences during drama.
- Peripeteia: Reversal of dramatic tension or fortune in a play.
- The Unities: A classical principle requiring 24-hour time, one place, and one main action.
- Mimesis: Greek word meaning imitation.
Dramatic Techniques
- Soliloquy: A long speech revealing a character’s inner thoughts, delivered alone on stage.
- Aside: A brief comment made to the audience or another character, unheard by others on stage.
Key Plot Points and Analysis in Hamlet
The Ghost's Revelation and Hamlet's Plan
What does the Ghost tell Hamlet about the cause of his death?
Claudius murdered him by pouring poison in his ear.
What does the Ghost call on Hamlet to do?
Avenge his murder.
What is Hamlet’s plan for revenge?
To confirm Claudius’s guilt by staging a play that reenacts the murder (The Mousetrap).
Why do they reenact Aeneas and Dido? How does it echo the main story?
It mirrors the theme of a son grieving a fallen king and a corrupt betrayal, reflecting Hamlet’s situation.
Why does Hamlet not kill Claudius while he’s praying? Why is it ironic?
He thinks Claudius will go to heaven if killed while praying. It’s ironic because Claudius wasn’t actually praying sincerely, so Hamlet missed his best chance for revenge.
Stylistic Devices and Conventions in Hamlet
Shakespeare’s Language and Stylistic Devices:
- Repetition
- Soliloquy
- Imagery
Conventions of Revenge Tragedies:
- A hesitating protagonist seeking revenge
- A villain (often the usurper)
- Multiple murders
Motifs in Hamlet:
- Honor and Revenge
- Action versus Inaction
- Madness (feigned and real)
Hamlet Plot Summary: Act-by-Act Questions
What had Bernardo seen at a prior watch?
Answer: He had seen King Hamlet's ghost.
Why does Marcellus think Horatio should speak to the ghost?
Answer: He is a scholar and should know the proper way to address a ghost.
What does young Fortinbras want to do?
Answer: He wants to regain the lands his father had lost.
Who do the soldiers/guards want to tell about the ghost?
Answer: They want to tell Hamlet.
Where does Claudius send Cornelius and Voltimand?
Answer: To Norway to ask the King to keep Fortinbras from going to battle.
What does the King tell Hamlet?
Answer: Stop grieving for his father's death, and think of him as his son.
Why is Hamlet upset?
Answer: His father died, and his uncle married his mother less than two months later.
What news does Horatio bring Hamlet?
Answer: News about King Hamlet's ghost.
What does Hamlet decide to do after Horatio’s news?
Answer: Go on watch with the guards at midnight to verify Horatio's news.
What is Laertes’ advice to Ophelia?
Answer: Stay away from Hamlet and protect her virtue.
Which of these is not part of Polonius’s advice to Laertes?
Answer: "Keep you in the rear of your affection..." (This is advice Laertes gives Ophelia).
At the end of Scene III, what does Ophelia agree to do?
Answer: Stay away from Hamlet and reject his affections.
What did the ghost tell Hamlet?
Answer: King Hamlet was murdered by Claudius and Hamlet should avenge him.
What does Hamlet swear Horatio to?
Answer: Not reveal the events of the evening, and go along if Hamlet pretends to be crazy.
Where does Polonius send Reynaldo?
Answer: To Paris to spy on Laertes and take him money and messages.
Why does Polonius think Hamlet is mad?
Answer: Ophelia's rejections have made him lovesick.
Why have Rosencrantz and Guildenstern come to the castle?
Answer: To find out why Hamlet is acting strangely and report to the King.
What is Polonius’s plan to test his theory?
Answer: Have Hamlet meet Ophelia while Polonius hides and eavesdrops.
How does Hamlet describe his problems to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern?
Answer: He used to enjoy life, but now finds no delight in man or woman.
What arrangement does Hamlet make with Player 1?
Answer: Have several of his own lines put into the play (The Mousetrap).
What does Hamlet say in his soliloquy after they leave?
Answer: He thinks himself a coward for not acting on revenge.
What message do Rosencrantz and Guildenstern bring the King and Queen?
Answer: Hamlet wishes them to see a play that night.
What is the point of Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy?
Answer: Pondering whether a miserable life is better than the unknown of death.
Describe Hamlet’s tone when speaking to Ophelia.
Answer: He is rude and aggressive (in the Nunnery Scene).
What do the King and Polonius decide after spying on them?
Answer: He is not love-sick; he has some other deep trouble.
Why does Hamlet give instructions to the players?
Answer: He wants the performance to appear natural and real, to hit home to the King.
What is the King’s reaction to the play, and what does it mean?
Answer: He got up and called for the lights; this confirms the Ghost was correct about the murder.
What message does Rosencrantz bring Hamlet from the Queen?
Answer: She wants to see him.
What do Rosencrantz and Guildenstern prepare to do for the King?
Answer: Take Hamlet to England.
Why doesn’t Hamlet kill Claudius when he is kneeling?
Answer: He wants him to die without a chance for a last confession (and thus go to hell).
How does Polonius die?
Answer: Hamlet stabs him through the tapestry, thinking it may be Claudius.
What does Hamlet want his mother to do?
Answer: Stop sleeping with the King.
What does Hamlet think of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern?
Answer: He calls them sponges soaking up the King's words and gifts.
Why must the King “not put the strong arm on” Hamlet?
Answer: His mother would not want him harmed, and the people like him.
When the King asks where Polonius is, what does Hamlet say?
Answer: "Not where he eats, but where he is eaten"; look in Heaven or hell.
What is in the letters sent with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern?
Answer: Orders for Hamlet to be killed as soon as he reaches England.
What prompts Hamlet to say, “My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth!”?
Answer: Seeing Fortinbras's army marching to fight fiercely over a small patch of land, contrasting with Hamlet's own inaction.
What has happened to Ophelia?
Answer: She has gone mad.
Why does Laertes force his way in? What does he want?
Answer: He wants to avenge his father's death.
What is the content of Hamlet’s letter to Horatio?
Answer: He escaped Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and is now on a pirate ship.
What plan do the King and Laertes discuss to kill Hamlet?
Answer: Set up a duel; either Laertes kills Hamlet with a poisoned rapier or the King poisons him with a drink.
How did Ophelia die?
Answer: She drowned.
Laertes thinks Ophelia should have a better funeral. What does the priest say?
Answer: She is lucky to receive a Christian burial at all, given the suspicion that she committed suicide.
Why does Hamlet jump into Ophelia’s grave?
Answer: To show his sorrow and love is as great as Laertes’.
What does the King say to Laertes after they are separated?
Answer: He assures Laertes that they will soon have the appropriate time and place to kill Hamlet.