Hamlet Essay Outline

Hamlet Essay Outline 

Thesis: Hamlet’s goal intensifies from merely seeking revenge to attempting to be a divine justice, which Shakespeare portrays as being something impossible for a human to achieve. 

After being told to kill Claudius, Hamlet takes it upon himself to decide who lives and who dies, even others besides Claudius. 

• “Haste me to know ’t, that I … May sweep to my revenge” (I.v. 29-31). The ghost asks for vengeance, and Hamlet readily agrees even though he has not yet been told who he must kill.
• “How now, a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead!” Hamlet eagerly and playfully calls out this statement as he stabs the hidden Polonius, mistaking him for Claudius. After this, Hamlet shows little remorse.
• “Let it work, / For ’tis the sport to have the engineer / Hoist with his own petard. And ’t shall go hard / But I will delve one yard below their mines / And blow them at the moon” (III.iv. 205-209). Hamlet plans to deceive his deceiving childhood friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and obliterate them for betraying him. 
• “if indeed you find him not within this month, you shall / nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby” (IV.iii. 34-35). Hamlet killed Polonius and hid the body, which was unnecessary since his mother saw him and would obviously tell Claudius about it.
• “They are not near my conscience. Their defeat / Does by their own insinuation grow” (V.ii. 57-58). Hamlet killed his childhood friends because they betrayed him, and he feels no remorse whatsoever for it. 

Not only does he decide if a person is allowed to live, Hamlet also attempts to control if his or her soul goes to Heaven or Hell. 

• “Then trip him, that his heels may kick at Heaven, / And that his soul may be as damned and black / As Hell, whereto it goes” (III.iii. 93-95). Hamlet plans to kill Claudius, but stops when he sees him in what looks like the middle of praying. Hamlet decide that it would be better to kill him some other time because if he does it now, he believes that Claudius will go to heaven. If Hamlet waits, he can kill Claudius when he is in the middle of some act that will assure his damnation. 
• “Heaven hath pleased it so / To punish me with this and this with me, That I must be their scourge and minister” (III.iv. 173-175). After killing Polonius, Hamlet views himself as a Heaven’s instrument of punishment. 
• “In Heaven. Send thither to see. If your messenger find / him not there, seek him i’ th’ other place yourself” (IV.iii. 32-33). Hamlet threatens Claudius about going to hell when Claudius questions where Polonius’s body is located.  

When he does not intend to kill a person, Hamlet instructs that person on how to live his or her life.

• “Get thee to a nunnery” (III.i. 120). He this to Ophelia, and it could either be him calling her out for being a bad liar or an honest command for her to get away from the men attempting to manipulate her.
• “Come, come, and sit you down. You shall not budge. / You go not till I set you up a glass / Where you may see the inmost part of you” Hamlet sits Gertrude down and plans on telling her about her soul and how she has sinned by abandoning her loyalty to King Hamlet and marrying Claudius. 
• “Oh, throw away the worser part of it / And live the purer with the other half” (III.iv. 157-158). Hamlet instructs his mother to live a “purer” life and then goes on to tell her how to do that, such as avoiding Claudius’s bed. 

When Hamlet finally decides to stop being a divine justice, everyone get the fate that they deserve. 

• “We defy augury. There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow … The readiness is all; since no man of aught / he leaves know, what is ’t to leave betimes? Let be” (V.ii. 191-195). Hamlet accepts that he is not a divine being and that he will die. After he stops trying to be divine justice, divine justice is executed: Gertrude dies due to her “sinful” behavior after King Hamlet’s death; Laertes gets revenge for his father and dies because he kills Hamlet; Claudius is killed for having murdered his brother; Hamlet achieves his revenge, is avenged against, and killed for all the others he has killed. 

Hamlet Eight Blog

Hamlet Eight Blog 

Throughout the play Hamlet ponders what happens after death, especially what happens to the soul. Between his religion and the ghost’s visit Hamlet seems pretty confident in the existence of Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory. During act V scene i he is faced with the questions of what happens to the physical body after death. When he and Horatio meet the gravedigger, the gravedigger is in the process of digging Ophelia’s grave and uproots many other corpses as he works. Upon seeing a tossed skull, Hamlet says, “How / the knave jowls it to the ground, as if ‘twere Cain’s / jawbone, that did the first murder” (V.i. 69-71). Hamlet criticizes the gravedigger for throwing a skull as if it were the skull of one of the most infamous murderers in all of Christianity and believes it should be treated better by not being dug up and definitely not being thrown. He then goes on to say, “Did these bones cost no more the breeding but to play / at loggets with them? Mine ache to think on ’t” (V.i. 83-84). Hamlet is shocked that someone’s grave can be dug up so unceremoniously and questions if a body, once it is dead, is worth so little that its unearthing is considered necessary and even acceptable. He states that this makes him uneasy and uncomfortable because during the play he never questions what happens to a person’s physical remains and how they are treated, and seeing the lack of respect they receive is jarring for Hamlet. He then sees another skull and wonders what that person was like in life. He randomly guesses that they might have been a lawyer and mourns their loss: “To have his fine pate full of fine dirt?” (V.i. 97). Hamlet is bothered by the fact that someone so respectable in life is treated so disrespectfully in death and that all his earthly possessions and accomplishments are now worthless and meaningless. When speaking to the gravedigger, who does not know he is Hamlet, about Hamlet’s madness, Hamlet suddenly changes the subject: “How long will a man lie i’ th’ earth ere he rot?” (V.i. 147). Hamlet’s question, which was completely unrelated to their conversation, shows that he is now concerned about the physical effects of death and what they do to a body, showing that Hamlet has some newfound worries about death, whereas before he only worried about the soul. When the gravedigger brings up yet another skull and says that the copse used to be a jester for King Hamlet, Hamlet recognizes the name and recalls his childhood with the jester: “He hath bore me / on his back a thousand times, and now, how abhorred / in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft” (V.i. 168-171). Hamlet is simultaneously saddened and disgusted by seeing the jester’s corpse. He mourns the loss of someone whom he used to be so close to, but he is also appalled by the state the body is in due to rot and decay and by the idea of having physical interactions with something that he can only now picture as horrendous. Hamlet then questions Horatio if Alexander the Great’s body is in a similar state, and receives an affirmative answer. At this point it dawns on Hamlet that everyone from a mere jester to a great warrior will rot away one day, including his father and himself. Although their souls may have different fates, everyone will be affected by the same physical ailments and disfigurations once they die. Most revenge stories end poorly for the person seeking revenge, so Hamlet is probably aware that there is a good chance he will die while seeking Claudius’s death. He is a religious person, so he has most likely accepted the fate of his soul already, but seeing all these corpses and realizing he will be like them gives Hamlet a reason to doubt if death is something for which he is prepared. During act V scene i Hamlet is forced to view death from a perspective that he never saw before, and he realizes that once a person dies, regardless of who they were, they will be treated equally yet also terribly, they are worthless, everything they possessed or achieved is meaningless, and they will rot and decay to the point where they are repulsive even to loved ones. All of these factors make Hamlet doubt whether or not he is able to tolerate the possibility of his death.  

Hamlet Five Blog

Hamlet Five Blog

Act III scene ii focuses on the themes of acting, playing, and seeming. The scene opens with Hamlet addressing one of the actors about the performance, stressing that it must be as serious as it is meant to be. Once the actor leaves, Horatio enters, and he and Hamlet begin discussing their plot to reveal Claudius’s crime by observing his reaction to the play. During this conversation Hamlet seems to be his usual self because “Horatio, thou art e’en as just a man / As e’er my conversation coped withal” (III.ii. 50-51). Hamlet feels that he can reveal his true nature when he is with Horatio because Horatio is the only character that Hamlet believes he can trust. Hamlet openly speaks to Horatio about his suspicions of Claudius and the accusation of the ghost, and he does so with his typical diction, not the mad yet intelligent diction he uses when around the others. Later as the play is about to begin the other characters enter, and Hamlet resumes his madman act. However, Hamlet is intelligent enough to realize that he has an opportunity to reenforce an incorrect idea. When Gertrude asks him to sit next to her, Hamlet responds by saying that the would rather sit with Ophelia, which Polonius picks up on: “[to King] Oh, ho, do you mark that?” (III.ii. 104). Throughout the rest of the play, Hamlet makes sexual remarks to Ophelia. By doing so, Hamlet convinces Polonius and Claudius more and more that the reason for his madness is Ophelia, not something like the murder of his father. Part way through the play Claudius questions Hamlet about the play, especially the plot, which mirrors King Hamlet’s death. Hamlet responds by saying that “’Tis a knavish piece of work, but what o’ that? Your / Majesty and we that have free souls, it touches us not” (III.ii. 227-228). Hamlet states that the play, though it has a unsettling plot, will not trouble any innocent person. He believes that the performance of the actors will bring forth the similar crimes of people who have acted falsely, such as Claudius. As the play continues, Hamlet’s theory is proven true as Claudius runs away during the reenactment of the former king’s murder. Hamlet is then left with Horatio and quickly drops his insane act. However, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern return and Hamlet once again dons his alternate persona. Hamlet requests that Guildenstern play the recorder. Guildenstern refuses claiming that he does not know how to play the recorder: “I have not the skill” (III.iii. 343). Hamlet responds with “You would play upon me … ‘Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played / on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, / though you fret me, you cannot play me” (III.iii. 345-352). Hamlet accuses Guildentern of trying to figuratively play, or lie to, him after Guildentern admits that he cannot literally play as simple an instrument as the recorder. Hamlet the states that even though Guildenstern can annoy him with his lies, he cannot successfully lie to Hamlet. Act III scene ii focuses on how Hamlet seems around certain people, the acting done by both Hamlet and Claudius, and people playing with Hamlet by lying to him. 

Hamlet Four Blog

Hamlet Four Blog

In act II scene ii a group of actors arrive at the palace. Hamlet approaches one of the actors and requests that he perform a speech. When asked which one, Hamlet relies, “’Twas Aeneas’ talk to Dido and there- / about of it, especially when he speaks of Priam’s slaughter” (II.ii 377-379). Hamlet claims that he loves this speech, almost certainly showing that he respects and idolizes Aeneas. The epic hero Aeneas is know for his great loyalty and piety and is revered as a fighter. After the Trojan War, he led the Trojans from their destroyed city and brought them to Italy, where his descendants later established Rome. Since Hamlet idolizes Aeneas, he wants to be like him and have many of the same traits. Hamlet is loyal and devoted to his father, even after his father’s death, and will do whatever the man asks of him; he plans to kill Claudius, which will most likely be attempted during some sort of confrontation when Aeneas-like fighting skills would be helpful; he wants to be a great leader and the King of Denmark, which he thinks is his rightful position, so that he can rule the country like his father did. Hamlet either possesses or wants to possess many of the qualities of Aeneas. However, being exactly like Aeneas would prove to be dangerous as well. Aeneas was hated by the goddess Juno, who planned his death and downfall throughout the entirety of the Aeneid. He lacked mental strength and resolve, which can be seen when he cries out for death during a terrible storm. In addition, Aeneas leaving his lover Dido led to her committing suicide. If Hamlet wants to be like Aeneas, he will suffer heavenly damnation, lack the will to continue on his quest, and unintentionally kill the ones he loves. Hamlet’s idolization of Aeneas and his characteristics foreshadows many of the struggles he will face throughout the rest of the play. After making his reference to Aeneas, the actor knows what speech Hamlet speaks of and recites it for him. The actor describes the death of the Trojan King Priam: “And never did the Cyclops’ hammers fall / On Mars’s armor, forged for proof eterne, / With less remorse than Pyrrhus’ bleeding sword / Now falls on Priam” (II.ii. 419-422). This section of the speech is supposed to be reminiscent of King Hamlet’s death. Like Priam, an innocent Old Hamlet was cruelly struck down and was helpless to do anything to stop it. Aeneas, the speaker in the actor’s speech, laments the death, even though at this point a great deal of time has passed since it, similar to how Hamlet continues to mourn his father’s passing. Hamlet then encourages the actor to hasten to the part of the speech about Priam’s wife Hecuba, which the actor does: “But who, ah woe, had seen the moblèd Queen … Run barefoot up and down, threatening the flames / With bisson rheum” (II.ii. 432-436). At this point, Hamlet becomes pale and teary. He is upset that even though his father was much like Priam, their wives acted completely differently towards their deaths. Hecuba ran about crying hysterically and “Would have made milch the burning eyes of Heaven / and passion in the gods” (ii.ii. 447-448). On the other hand, Old Hamlet’s wife hardly mourns him and marries his brother a month after the death. Hamlet’s breakdown also leads to him questioning his own resolve because a mere speech has caused such a dramatic reaction within him, relating back to Aeneas’s own lack of resolve. In addition to mentioning specific characters, the overall reference to the Trojan War, caused by the actions of the city’s prince, and the downfall of Troy foreshadows that Prince Hamlet’s actions could lead to turmoil within Denmark and potentially its downfall, or at least it becoming unstable. Act II scene ii has many references to the Trojan War and the Aeneid. The purpose of this is to emphasize that this play is a tragedy with many deaths, foreshadow that fate of Hamlet and Denmark, and compare the similarities and differences between parallel characters. 

Hamlet Three Blog

Hamlet Three Blog

During act I scene v, the ghost speaks to Hamlet and informs him about his intentions. The ghost reveals that he is Hamlet’s father and has been sent to purgatory. However, the ghost gives no actual prove of this besides taking the appearance of the father. Regardless, Hamlet quickly accepts him, showing that his grief has made him desperate for his father’s return and willing to beliefs the apparition. The ghost then goes on to ask that Hamlet avenge his murder that he once again has no proof of: “Haste me know ’t, that I … May sweep to my revenge” (!.v. 29-31). Hamlet quickly agrees to do so. Within the first thirty lines of this scene, Hamlet readily accepts the spirit as his father and agrees to get revenge for a murder. Both instances lack proof, which shows that Hamlet is either very trusting of what appears to be his father or very gullible. The ghost then describes his murder, adding numerous, unnecessary details, such as “a most instant getter barked about, / Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust / All my smooth body” (I.v. 71-73). He presents a long, detailed speech about his death after saying “Brief let me be” (I.v. 59). This seems somewhat suspicious since his time with Hamlet is running out and he already informed him about who committed the murder and a general description of it as well. It is as though the ghost needs to convince Hamlet, but as shown earlier, Hamlet already has complete trust in the ghost. The speech is reminiscent of a lie filled with such great detail that it seems as though it could not have been made up and is in fact true. When the ghost leaves, Hamlet says, “I’ll wipe away all trivial, fond records, / All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past … And thy commandment all alone shall live / Within the book and volume of my brain” (I.v. 99-103). Hamlet states that he will abandon all “trivial” thoughts and focus solely on the ghost’s request for revenge, which could prove to be dangerous for him since he has thus far shown that his intelligence is his greatest strength. Horatio and Marcellus then enter and request that Hamlet tell them of the exchange between him and the ghost: “No. You will reveal it” (I.v. 121). This quick yet casual refusal of a simple request from a close friend shows that Hamlet is becoming somewhat paranoid and untrusting. He then apologizes for the offense. Horatio claims there was no offense but Hamlet insists there was: “Yes, be Saint Patrick, but there is” (I.v. 138). It is significant that Hamlet references Saint Patrick because as someone who studied at Wittenberg, he is most likely Protestant, and the worship of saints and especially Saint Patrick, who guards purgatory, is a very Catholic tradition. Hamlet’s reference to a Saint that is closely associated with a very Catholic belief shows that the ghost is making him questions his previous beliefs about religion and the afterlife. Finally, Hamlet insists that Horatio and Marcellus swear to not tell anyone what happened that night. Throughout this section, the ghost continually calls out from below that they must swear. Although addressing Horatio and Marcellus, it appears that only Hamlet can hear him since he is the only one who responds. This  could hint at the beginnings of a disconnection between Hamlet and reality. In conclusion, scene v shows Hamlet as trusting of the spirit, dangerously focused on revenge, questioning his beliefs, and disconnecting from reality. 

Hamlet Two Blog

Hamlet 2 Blog

After the death of the former king, Claudius inherits the throne. In his first monologue he claims to be grieving his brother’s death, yet he displays no signs of actual grief: “we with wisest sorrow think on him / Together with remembrance of ourselves” (I.ii. 6-7). Claudius states here that he must think of himself in addition to mourning his brother. Claudius is also very comfortable with the idea of marrying his brother’s wife. He casually refers to her as “our sometime sister, now our queen” (I.ii. 8). This kind of closeness could imply that they have had feelings for each other for a long time. Claudius claims that this marriage is to counteract the sadness about the former king and help the country adjust itself from one rule to other, since Gertrude is the “jointress” (I.ii. 9) that connects the two kings. Later, Claudius refers to Hamlet as his son, which Hamlet coolly replies to with “A little more than kin and less than kind” (I.ii. 65). This brief exchange shows that while they are closely related, they do not get along and their whole relationship is tense and strained. Soon after, Claudius criticizes Hamlet for still mourning his father’s death. Claudius says that all sons have lost their fathers and that staying in mourning “shows a will most incorrect to Heaven” (I.ii. 95). He implies that this will lead to bad things and straying from the path of God. Claudius then goes on to reference the first human death, which was Abel, who was killed by his brother Cain. This reference unsuccessfully encourages Hamlet to move on and is ironic since Cain caused the death of his brother, implying that Claudius also killed his brother. Following this monologue, Claudius then tells Hamlet that he is not allowed to return to school in Wittenberg, but earlier in the scene Claudius agrees to let Laertes return to France. It is strange that Claudius would want to keep Hamlet around since they do not get along well and Hamlet could potentially be a threat to Claudius since Hamlet is the Previous king’s son. This suggests that Claudius has a purpose for keeping Hamlet around, possibly that he intends to kill Hamlet to secure his place as ruler. Claudius’s words and actions throughout act I scene ii show that he wants to keep the appearance of a good ruler, but a darker side to him keeps emerging, displaying his evil intentions.

The ghost seemingly of Hamlet’s father appears in the first scene of the play during the watch of Barnardo, Marcellus, and Horatio. When the men see it, they keep saying that the apparition looks like the king: “In the same figure like the King that’s dead” (I.i. 43).  However, they do not say that it is the king because it does not act like the king since it is silent and hardly interacts with them. When the ghost leaves for the first time, Horatio says, “This bodes some strange eruption to our state” (I.i. 71). The “this” Horatio refers to is both the appearance of the dead king’s likeness and the state it is in, which is the same outfit the king wore when he battled the King of Norway. Horatio feels that this is an ominous sign that something horrible will happen in the near future, such as another war with Norway. The ghost features many common characteristics of spirits. For example, its actions are limited, it appears at night, and it must leave as the sun rises. When it comes again in Hamlet’s presence, Hamlet says, “Be thou spirit of health or goblin damned” (I.iv. 40). Hamlet doubts whether the ghost is truly his father’s spirit or some type of monster. He therefore also doubts whether it can be trusted and questions its intentions. Shakespeare’s inclusion of a ghost in this play is very significant and relates to that previous quote. Hamlet was written at a time when England and the rest of Europe were undergoing the Protestant Reformation, when a massive group of Christians broke from the Catholic Church and formed their own sect. England specifically had a very confusing time during this period. The country was somewhat Protestant but mostly Catholic under Henry VIII, Protestant under Edward VI, Catholic under Mary I, and finally Protestant under Elizabeth I. The English had undergone a long period of constantly reevaluating their beliefs. One such belief is the existence of Purgatory. The Catholics believed in it, while the Protestants did not. Hamlet, who is most likely Protestant since he studied at Wittenberg, is forced to question what the spirit really is and then doubt his own Protestant beliefs about the nonexistence Purgatory when he sees a being seemingly from Purgatory. The question Hamlet poses to the ghost represents the English transition from Catholicism to Protestantism because it shows confusion over what to believe as there are two contrasting ideas that could both potentially be correct. The ghost in Hamlet is both an omen of death and war and a representation of the religious shifts within England because the characters worry about the reason for its appearance and questions what it is and from whence it came.