...CRITICAL ANALYSIS In Act II Sc.1 Polonius talks to a man named Reynaldo and sends him to spy on his son. Ophelia reports to her father Polonius the strange behaviour of Hamlet. Polonius immediately concludes that Hamlet is 'madly in love' with Ophelia: “That hath made him mad." He wants to report it to the king immediately, because Ophelia says he just stood there staring at her for five minutes covered in mud and looked insane. Polonius at first thinks that Hamlets love for Ophelia is a fake act, but soon finds that his love is actual true. But he then believes he has gone mad, he believes he has gone crazy. This creates dramatic irony, Polonius cannot tell the truth, he is misreading Hamlet and it leads to his death. We the readers know that he is wrong about Hamlet. This scene creates a beginning of Polonius end. He’s actions lead to his eventual downfall. This scene shows that Polonius is not trustworthy because of him spying on his son, it shows the deception that Hamlet has and that Ophelia really does care for Hamlet. The main theme that it develops is acting, because both Polonius towards his son and Hamlet towards Ophelia trick them with false words and emotion. In this scene we learn that Polonius makes false judgements, and Hamlet can be very deceptive with his actions and emotions. We learn that the theme of acting is very present in the play. Through this acting many characters in the play don’t not know what the true intentions of other...
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...his widow, Gertrude. Claudius seems an able King, easily handling the threat of the Norwegian Prince Fortinbras. But Hamlet is furious about Gertrude's marriage to Claudius. Hamlet meets the ghost, which claims to be the spirit of his father, murdered by Claudius. Hamlet quickly accepts the ghost's command to seek revenge. Yet Hamlet is uncertain if what the ghost said is true. He delays his revenge and begins to act half-mad, contemplate suicide, and becomes furious at all women. The Lord Chamberlain, Polonius, concludes that Hamlet's behavior comes from lovesickness for Ophelia, Polonius's daughter. Claudius and Gertrude summon two of Hamlet's old friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to find out what's wrong with him. As Polonius develops a plot to spy on a meeting between Hamlet and Ophelia, Hamlet develops a plot of his own: to have a recently arrived troupe of actors put on a play that resembles Claudius's alleged murder of Old Hamlet, and watch Claudius's reaction. Polonius and Claudius spy on the meeting between Ophelia and Hamlet, during which Hamlet flies into a rage against women and marriage. Claudius concludes Hamlet neither loves Ophelia nor is mad. Seeing Hamlet as a threat, he decides to send him away. At the play that night, Claudius runs from the room during the scene of the murder, proving his guilt. Hamlet gets his chance for revenge when, on the way to see Gertrude, he comes upon Claudius, alone and praying. But Hamlet holds off—if Claudius is...
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...The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. Set in the Kingdom of Denmark, the play dramatizes the revenge Prince Hamlet exacts on his uncle Claudius for murdering King Hamlet, Claudius's brother and Prince Hamlet's father, and then succeeding to the throne and taking as his wife Gertrude, the old king's widow and Prince Hamlet's mother. The play vividly portrays both true and feigned madness – from overwhelming grief to seething rage – and explores themes of treachery, revenge, incest, and moral corruption. Hamlet is Shakespeare's longest play and among the most powerful and influential tragedies in the English language, with a story capable of "seemingly endless retelling and adaptation by others." The play was one of Shakespeare's most popular works during his lifetime It has inspired writers from Goethe and Dickens to Joyce and Murdoch, and has been described as "the world's most filmed story after Cinderella". Shakespeare based Hamlet on the legend of Amleth, preserved by 13th-century chronicler Saxo Grammaticus in his Gesta Danorum as subsequently retold by 16th-century scholar François de Belleforest. He may also have drawn on or perhaps written an earlier Elizabethan play known today as the Ur-Hamlet. He almost certainly created the title role for Richard Burbage, the leading tragedian of Shakespeare's time. In the 400 years since, the role has been performed by highly acclaimed actors and actresses from each successive age. Three...
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