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Hamlet Lecture Notes 1

This document provides context and character summaries for William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. It introduces the main characters including Hamlet, Claudius, Gertrude, Polonius, Ophelia, and Laertes. It summarizes the key events in Act 1 Scene 1, including the appearance of the Ghost which unsettles the guards, and reveals that young Fortinbras plans to attack Denmark. It also summarizes Act 1 Scene 2, noting how Claudius uses rhetoric to justify his marriage to Gertrude and ascent to the throne, while characters like Laertes demonstrate loyalty to the new king without questioning his rise to power.

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104 views

Hamlet Lecture Notes 1

This document provides context and character summaries for William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. It introduces the main characters including Hamlet, Claudius, Gertrude, Polonius, Ophelia, and Laertes. It summarizes the key events in Act 1 Scene 1, including the appearance of the Ghost which unsettles the guards, and reveals that young Fortinbras plans to attack Denmark. It also summarizes Act 1 Scene 2, noting how Claudius uses rhetoric to justify his marriage to Gertrude and ascent to the throne, while characters like Laertes demonstrate loyalty to the new king without questioning his rise to power.

Uploaded by

Yaren Ezgi Işık
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Tragical History of Hamlet

Prince of Denmark

List of characters:

Hamlet: Prince of Denmark


Ghost: the late king of Denmark, Hamlet’s father
King Claudius: the new king who is also the brother of the late king
Queen Gertrude: now married to King Claudius, Hamlet’s mother & his father’s widow
Polonius: King Claudius’ major councillor
Laertes: Polonius’ son
Ophelia: Polonius’ daughter
Horatio: Hamlet’s close friend and fellow student
Barnardo, Francisco, Marcellus: watchmen
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern: Hamlet’s childhood friends and fellow students
Reynaldo: Polonius’ man
Voltemand & Cornelius: Danish ambassadors to Norway
Osric: a courtier
Players
Gravedigger
Fortinbras: Prince of Norway

As the play opens, we find ourselves at the battlements of Castle Elsinore, Denmark. The
king of Denmark, Hamlet senior, is dead. His wife, Queen Gertrude, has remarried his
brother Claudius, who has recently become the new king. In the meantime, Hamlet, the
young prince, comes back to Elsinore from Wittenberg for the funeral of his father.

Act 1, Scene 1: “Who’s there?”

The play opens with this question, which not only demands a clarification of one’s
identity, but also the unfolding of one’s intentions and thoughts. In our class discussion, we
talked about the possible connotations of this question in relation to the issues of fear,
anxiety, uneasiness and political turmoil. The guards Barnardo and Francisco are armed on
duty at the battlements of the royal castle, and they are nervous. It is midnight. Barnardo
has come to relieve Francisco of his duty, but he first challenges Francisco by approaching
with asserting this question. In return, Francisco demands Barnardo to unfold himself as
well: “Stop and identify yourself” (1.1.2). The opening conversation between the two
guards creates an atmosphere of unease and fear, and it indicates that there is continual
awareness of incipient danger. In this scene, nature imagery also serves to underline how
odd and anxious this situation is as Francisco states: “It’s bitterly cold out, and I’m
depressed” (1.1.6). This mood predominates most of the characters in the play.
As Barnardo asks if Horatio is there, Horatio answers him with a bitter joke: “A piece
of him” (1.1.17). The phrase ‘a piece of him’ might indicate that Horatio is offering his hand
to greet the guard and that the cold has reduced him to a fragment, which is his hand. Yet,
the phrase also implies that this is just a piece of him, a shrunken version of his self because
he unintentionally expresses the fragmented state of this society, which is ruled by
Claudius, the deceitful brother of the late king.
The odd thing is that the guards are armed and nervous as they do not know the
reason why they keep the watch. Later, Marcellus wants to know the reason why Denmark
is in a state of military alert. The fact that the guards are supposed to protect the castle
against an unknown danger makes the audience question the validity of Claudius’ kingship
as the guards are left in an ambiguous state at this moment. They learn from Horatio that
young Fortinbras is planning to attack Elsinore to avenge his father, the late king of
Norway. Act I, Scene I provides us with an unfolding of Denmark’s recent political history.
Along with the war preparations, we learn about the previous war between Hamlet senior
and Fortinbras senior. The dead king Hamlet defeated and killed Fortinbras, the late king of
Norway, and won parts of Norway. Young Fortinbras intends to avenge his father and gain
the lost territories by force (1.1.79-106). Looking at Horatio’s account, we should also
question the validity of Hamlet senior in his political decisions because he threw his people
to the wolves waging a war with Fortinbras senior who dared the late king to combat
(1.1.80-89). We might consider Hamlet senior to be an irresponsible king for accepting the
late king of Norway’s challenge. Even though Hamlet senior gained victory, he
accomplished this at the cost of his men’s lives.
We also learn that the guards and Horatio want to question the Ghost who has
appeared at the battlements twice before. The Ghost looks like the former king Hamlet, but
they are not sure whether it is the former king’s ghost or an evil spirit who has come to
deceive them in the late king’s disguise. In any case, they recognize his kingship because
the Ghost appears in full armour as Horatio states: “The king was wearing exactly this
armour when he fought the king of Norway. And the ghost frowned just like the king did
once” (1.1.60-61). The unidentified state of the Ghost’s presence will be unfolded by young
Hamlet, as the Ghost will later inform him about his uncle’s betrayal and usurpation of the
throne. In the play, the issue of unfolding is not only about disclosing one’s identity, but
also telling one’s story.

Act 1, Scene 2: from state politics into family dynamics

We see in the second scene that the parents endeavour to contain and control the
behaviour and decision of their children. Following this scene, personal and familial issues
are always connected to power and politics in the play.

Claudius, the new king of Denmark, gathers his subjects and acknowledges their
recent support of his succession to the throne. We gradually get to know the characters and
learn about their intentions through their dialogues and the way they present themselves.
Remember that language defines so many things in this play. Looking at Claudius’ first
speech, we immediately suspect his public face. In showing them his gratitude, the king
reminds his councillors that they have approved of his marriage to the widow Queen and
his kingship. In this way, he demonstrates his political skill to persuade his subjects and
gives a positive spin to his delicate position. For instance, we see his rhetorical skill in the
way he defines their war-like condition. He points out that he joins forces with Gertrude,
‘the imperial jointress’, because it is a wise thing to do in these times of conflict between
Denmark and Norway. He makes the marriage seem like a political decision that has been
taken for the sake of bringing stability and order to Denmark as they are on the verge of
battle with young Fortinbras. Using royal ‘we’ in his speech, Claudius calls attention to his
present state of royalty and eliminates the possibility that his actions and decisions derive
from personal ambition. He defines his succession to the throne as an occurrence “with
mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage” (1.2.12). At this point remember that usually
marriage is associated with mirth and funeral with dirge, not the other way around. Thus,
Claudius presents himself as a sincere and mindful king to his subjects and influences their
thought and emotions skilfully to avoid any questioning of his hasty marriage and kingship.
He always uses such antithetical statements and tries to soften the situation.
After Claudius sends ambassadors to Norway to stop young Fortinbras’ attack, he
gives permission to Laertes to return to France. Here, we learn that Laertes follows the
authority of the new king and avoids any conversation about the death of the late king:
“France, which I left to come to Denmark for your coronation” (1.2.52-3). He neither
mentions the funeral nor offers his condolences even though the late king was Claudius’
brother. As such, Laertes appears to be a character that adheres to the authority of the new
king and he immediately demonstrates his loyalty by only focusing on the coronation of the
new king.

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