(New) Key Quotes

Ophelia’s passivity

• 'As you did command'  (brevity of her syntax and diction does not allow for own opinions or articulation, synecdoche for wider oppression of femininity, textual archetype. She acts not from personal conviction but from external instruction, a passive  and not a subject within the sentence). Chain of Being states women were hierarchically created below men and therefore believed to be of inferior intellect and morals to men​

• Bradley: it was essential to Shakespeare's purpose that too great an interest should not be aroused in the love story. It is essential that Ophelia is characterised in a way that prevents her from becoming central to the plot​

• Ophelia's presence in Hamlet is easy to miss – even her death occurs offstage and is told through another character. Ophelia’s death via ‘drown[ing]’ could arguably be a resort to an external retreat into femininity - used to demonstrate her desire to escape the inevitable status quo of her future. Ophelia trades her individual voice for the collective silent voice of women in death. Shakespeare uses this image to note that it seems only in death that women can reach this patriarchal ideal of voicelessness

• Through this objectification she becomes a tool through which Shakespeare can reveal the nature of other characters. Showalter points out the impossibility of having female representation in patriarchal discourse that isn't one of 'madness, incoherence, fluidity or silence,' so perhaps one ought to consider dynamics in the court, or indeed the play Hamlet itself, as a form of patriarchal discourse

• consider line allocation given to women - minimal influence upon the play as a microcosm of the minimal contributions of women within society. Gertrude only has 155 lines (4%) and Ophelia only speaks 170 lines

Ophelia treated as a victim of the patriarchy

​

• Lexical association throughout of Ophelia with 'nothing.’ The Gentleman declares her ‘speech is nothing' - if we consider speech as a reflection of Ophelia’s voice and agency, then this becomes symbolic of how women are marginalised and devalued within a patriarchal society. There is no substance to her words – even in madness Ophelia is absence. However, even before Ophelia goes mad, she occupies a position in which her speech has no stable meaning of its own – Hamlet is able to twist and sexualise it. 'I think nothing, my lord' she tells him in the Mousetrap scene, and he cruelly twists her words. (Hamlet’s obsessive desire to manipulate female language to performatively reassrt his masculinity). Hamlet's obscene pun on 'nothing' as a' fair thought to lie between maids' legs' exploits an Elizabethan slang that equates female genitalia with 'no-thing' (as in Much Ado About Nothing). The lexical associations of ‘nothing’ lack substance, showcasing Hamlet’s desire to reject femininity as absence in order to reassert his own fragile masculinity). In the male visual system of representation and desire, women's sexual organs reinscribe what Luce Irigaray identifies as the phallocentric horror of 'having nothing to see.' This transforms female sexuality into lack, where Ophelia's speech thus represent the horror of having nothing to say in public terms defined by the court. She is consequently deprived of thought, sexuality and language​
  (does this link to the Freudian idea of ‘penis envy’)

• 'I'll loose my daughter to him' ('loose; as if in captivity – barnyard expression, farmer would loose a cow in heat, emphasised by sustained farmyard diction 'farm and carters', degradation within the Great Chain of Being)

Ophelia as eroticised

• 'The canker galls the infants of the spring too oft before their buttons be disclosed'' contagious blastments' Laertes desires to protect Ophelia's chastity and virginity as this is at the nexus of female value (semantic field of disease and corruption, physically tainted)(innuendo of unopened 'buttons' = graphic allusion to female genitalia, Ophelia as an erotic object. Laertes' reputation/status  linked to Ophelia's chastity, idea of Virgin Mary​

• Elaine Showalter: a 'Cubist Ophelia of multiple perspectives' because she is fetishized and expected to maintain her dignity, dichotomy in which sexuality is both attractive and abhorrent​

• Ophelia’s madness was most visible in Act 4 Scene 5 through her linguistic degradation and disordered speech, losing iambic pentameter and instead reverting to song – songs rich in bodily and sexual imagery surrounding defloration, and loss of virginity. (former simplicity, blunt and plain diction e.g. as you did command).

• Carol Thomas Neely: Ophelia’s madness is embodied and somaticized (represented bodily). Hamlet’s madness, by contrast, is arguably strategic - philosophical and politicised in form and context. Hamlet’s melancholy manifests itself in social criticism, and it is viewed as potentially dangerous – Ophelia's is also viewed as a threat to Gertrude and Claudius​

• 'There's rosemary... there is pansies' Her act of distributing flowers is somatic: meaning is conveyed through physical tokens, where her body and actions become the medium of expression. The concept of Ophelia handing out flowers, and essential ‘deflowering’ herself, bears inextricable links to female sexuality and her bodily vulnerability. This could bear associations to the condition of hysteria, traditionally considered an exclusively female mental illness that stemmed from the uterus. Ophelia's symbolic flowers also function as a silent indictment – naming corruption and crime within the court implicitly. Her madness ultimately becomes a form of truth-telling that the court cannot control
  (‘columbines’ = ingratitude/infidelity, ‘rue’ = regret/sorrow)

• Mack: Madness allows freedom of speech, but that these insights might be dismissed as merely fiction or nonsense​

Ophelia as a foil to Hamlet, used by madness, rather than Hamlet who usesmadness. However, as the narrative unfolds his behaviour becomesincreasingly erratic, leading us to question the boundaries between whatconstitutes sanity or madness. The device of madness could be used byShakespeare as a representation of female autonomy and the patriarchy.Hamlet has autonomous control over his madness, able to manipulate it to hisown advantage within society, whilst Ophelia is a victim of madness –vulnerability of women and lack of agency. (Converse interpretation of madnessas providing Ophelia with autonomy, where madness becomes a method ofspreading contagion at court - ‘she may strew/dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds’, Ophelia is powerful in this moment. Shakespearean tragediesexplore deep patriarchal anxieties about female power, their potential threat,and the consequent male effeminisation)

Oedipal reading of Gertrude

• 'Gertrude's private room' ('private' evokes space of intimacy and secrecy – hidden recesses of the mind. Many directors chose to stage this scene in a bedroom, which emphasises the sexual and maternal undertones through a reading via an Oedipal lens.​

• Freud’s interpretation positions Hamlet as possessing an Oedipus complex, harbouring unconscious sexual attraction to Gertrude, and therefore viewing Claudius as a rival who has enacted the very impulses Hamlet repressed. This provides a rich psychological framework to understanding Hamlet’s inaction and conflict​

• As the Oedipus complex operates within the unconscious mind, Hamlet may not have full control over his actions; his erratic behaviour becomes a symptom of the corruption of the human psyche rather than moral weakness. This reading reframes his inaction not as indecisiveness but as a deep internal paralysis, created by desires he cannot articulate or even consciously recognise​

• Adelman: argument that Hamlet's principle concern is not revenging for his father but complex feelings towards his mother, desire to remake his mother in the image of the Virgin Mary

• However, contrasting opinion of rather than Hamlet expressing an Oedipal complex by urging Gertrude not to sleep with Claudius(‘refrain tonight’), he is instead adopting the role of a religious preacher – extended lexical field of religious language ‘devil’ ‘angel’ ‘blessing’ ‘confess’ ‘repent’ ‘heaven'

Hamlet’s and societal attitudes towards the nature of women through Gertrude (incl GCoB)

•  According to the medieval chain of being still given credence at this time, women came below men on the hierarchy of creation, since it was believed that they were of inferior intellect and moral understanding to men. They could not bear arms or hold military rank or public office, and it was therefore unacceptable for them to attempt to dominate or overrule their husbands. Women could rise only through their association with men and their rank, hence Gertrude's need to secure her status as queen by marrying the next king.​ This was not unusual in the Tudor times: indeed Henry VIII’s first wife Catharine of Aragon was initially married to his older brother, Arthur. To do this, Henry VIII catalysed the division of the church, as according to law of 1563, a woman could not marry her husband’s brother.

• 'Frailty thy name is woman' Hamlet's anger at his mother's quick remarriage translates to placement of blame inherently on the nature of women – collapses Gertrude, Ophelia and 'woman' as an abstract concept into one ideological figure (Showalter). No longer women in their own right but drafted into a misogynistic shorthand. ('Frailty' -personification of weakness defined by femininity – Adam and Eve as misogynistic cliché, opposition between supposed male stoicism and stereotype of female foolishness or inconsistency​
  (Knox, a male writer during the late 16th century - women are ‘weak, frail, impatient, feeble and foolish’)

• Idea of fickle females was a classical literary stereotype fostered by the medieval church,whose misogyny was founded upon the premise that Eve betrayed her husband andall mankind in allowing herself to be seduced by a serpent. Idea of original sin in Genesisequates to his mother being ‘wicked’ and incestuous’ - her sin transcends to a level ofbiblical disgust​

‘To whom do you speak this?’ (Gertrude to Hamlet)

• Marks a shift from the Ghost's visibility to invisibility – marks a descent into lunacy​

• Mirroring of the opening line ‘who’s there?’, establishing a cyclical pattern of uncertainty and mistrust. This structural mirroring ties into the motif of Hamlet questioning his identity throughout, where the repetition of the interrogative form highlights Hamlet’s preoccupation with the unreliability of perception​

• Dramatic method of selective visibility creates a disjunction between Hamlet’s subjective experience and objective reality perceived by others – is this a genuine supernatural encounter or a psychological break in which Hamlet outwardly projects his conscience?​

• Uncertainty and confusion surrounding the nature of his father’s ghost - ‘majestical’ or ‘guilty’ (contrasting adjectives underscore enigmatic nature). For contemporary Elizabethan audiences, this ‘ghost’ would have elicited similarly conflicting opinions, as Hamlet is a product of the Reformation, written at the end of the 16th century after which Protestantism (headed by Martin Luther) was eclipsing Catholicism. Readings of the ghost differs between Catholicism and Protestantism, but also through modern psychological readings of the ghost as symbolic of repressed trauma​ (freudian ideologies of the unconscious mind). Mirrors social changes (e.g. reformation, humanism) of the time, and broader doubt/uncertainty - link to the instability of truth, and Hamlet’s inaction.

• The Ghost’s return from Purgatory evokes not only a lost Catholic past, but is also a ghostly relic of a chivalric age (Shapiro). The ghost is the symbol of the past - costume, he is not dressed as he died, but instead in the ‘armour’ that he heroically fought in thirty years earlier. (suggestion that this is antiquated, representing a bygone era of masculinity)

[Beneath] ‘Swear’
In Elizabethan theatre the space under the stage was associated with hell. This spatial positioning is symbolic, as it both visually and aurally links him to the underworld – with ideas of hell or damnation. Shakespeare begins to blur the boundaries between justice and vengeance, good and evil 

Gertrude as gross/corrupt

• 'Rank sweat of an enseamed bed' 'nasty sty' (Grotesque and sensory imagery. Such visceral language evokes filth, decay and animality - 'sty' as a direct evocation of pigs reduces Gertrude's sexuality to something base and bestial. This zoomorphism would reduce her humanity within the Great Chain of Being.) Virginity and chastity were also linked to religion via the Virgin Mary and regarded not only as an ideal state for women but as a test of the nobility of males, since only the higher orders were thought to be able to resist the temptations of the flesh; hence Hamlet's disgust at the sexual behaviours of his mother and his uncle. Such a graphic preoccupation with Gertrude’s sexual body has led many critics to interpret the scene through an Oedipal lens, suggesting Hamlet’s psychosexual fixation on his mother and his revulsion as a repressed form of desire​

• ‘Sets a blister there’  ‘Blister’ as a reference to prostitution, and a euphemism for prostitutes as being physically branded for sexual sin (external marker of their internal sin) – association with blisters and sores from the prostitution. This accusation positions Gertrude not merely as morally compromised, but as contaminated, demonstrating Hamlet’s fixation on the body as a site of corruption. Consistently uses female sexuality against women in the play, focus on chastity as divinely immoral​

• ‘Sweet religion makes a rhapsody of words’
  'Rhapsody’ as a miscellaneous collection of words suggests that Gertrude’s actions have rendered the sanctity of marriage – a sacred contract before God – meaningless. Religion was deeply entrenched within Shakespearean England, and therefore Hamlet appeals to audience's disgust by constructing Gertrude to have made a mockery of these scared promises. ​

• Exposes Hamlet’s meta-theatrical linguistic anxiety, as Hamlet’s condemnation also indicates a deep distrust of language itself – Gertrude's moral failure corrupts not only religious vows but the capacity of words to hold weight. ​

Polonius as corrupt

​

• Polonius depicted at the heart of the rotten Danish state, embodies modern age typified by political ruthlessness, surveillance and secrecy​

• 'I hold my duty... both to my God and gracious King' (Polonius instrumental in securing Claudius' claim to the throne). Elizabethan view of monarchs as imbued with a divine right to rule, appointed by God himself – therefore Claudius' unnatural ascension to the throne usurps divine order. Microcosm-macrocosm theory – Polonius as chief counsellor therefore firmly ensconced within web of corruption and political deceit​

• Shown to possess great power over knowledge and truth within the play – public reading of Hamlet's private letter to Ophelia in Act 1. Polonius as a controlling medium over Hamlet's voice tangibly symbolises the contrast between human emotion and bureaucratic distortion – questioning personal agency and integrity within a corrupt court. Overt reading of letter = pervasion of political/patriarchal authority = mediation of other narrative voices. 'Doubt thou the stars are fire; doubt that the sun doth move' (Parallel syntax, anaphora. Lexical obsession with doubt could be extended to Polonius - ‘doubt’ the morality of his actions and ‘doubt’ nature of truth through his mediation of Hamlet’s voice

Treatment of Ophelia

• Polonius views Ophelia's relationship with Hamlet as a further means of endearing himself to Claudius​

• 'Loose my daughter to him' (as if Ophelia is in captivity, barnyard expression – farmer looses a cow in heat, sustained farmyard diction in subsequent line 'farm and carters', degrades autonomy and agency through animalistic connotations. Elizabethan hierarchical Great Chain of Being, Ophelia reduced to animalistic state of being​

• Richard Vardy: Polonius has no qualms about abusing or using his daughter to serve the new king​

• Interestingly, many productions choose to cast Polonius with the same actor as the gravedigger, the irony here being that through his own desire for status and reward, he metaphorically digs the grave for his own daughter

Polonius context

• Polonius’ espionage draws parallels to Lord Burghley, Queen Elizabeth’s aid. Draws on political tensions of the Elizabethan era, making audiences continuous link about their own political situation. Mirrors fears around wrong person claiming the throne – Elizabethan has no heir, bringing these fears to the fore​

• TO ADD - Machiavellian leader

Polonius as a source of comedic relief

• Linguistics and rhetoric, long rambling speeches, comic disfluency​

• 'And then sir does a this – a does – what was I about to say?' (caesurae work in opposition to the logic of syntax to expose lack of rhetorical adeptness. Brevity of syntax, short monosyllabic words = simplicity)​

• 'Why day is day, night night and time is time' (repeated diacope, cyclical, phonologically heavy and tedious. Temporal marker creates cruel irony of concept of 'time'. ​

• Richard Vardy: Polonius to be nothing more than a stock character, primarily fulfilling the role of 'an unwitting form of comic relief'​

• Mark Manson: Shakespeare portrays incoherence through the extensive clauses and subordination of Polonius' sentences, crafting his character to be one of foolishness and comedic relief​

Claudius Corruption

‘Our dear brother’s death the memory be green’ ​

• The colour ‘green’ is polysemic, on the one hand bearing connotations to fresh vegetation and the fact that this new marriage is so soon after the death of the King, but also as the traditional association of ‘green’ with envy, and the way in which Claudius killed old Hamlet for power. This highlights his duplicitous character and could link to the theme of appearance vs reality ​(link to the ‘rank garden’ as a subversion of Edenic ideals)

• ‘Dear’ also as polysemic – Old Hamlet is beloved but simultaneously expensive – the death of old Hamlet will be costly for the entire nation, which foreshadows that chaos will soon unfold​

• The opening speech from Claudius begins with sentences of 7, 9 and 9 lines respectively in length – perhaps seemingly unnatural or rehearsed? He attempts to construct a veneer of elegance or sophistication to convince the public of his authority and intelligence, however this is subverted by the undertones of rehearsal and insincerity that arise from the formal and scripted style of speech.​

• ‘Our’ - collective pronouns to create sense of unity within the court ​

'With one auspicious eye and one dropping eye'​

• Exploration of a dichotomy through the juxtaposition of antithetical words

• This acts as an impressive piece of rhetoric from Claudius, highlighting the duplicity of his character

• This line becomes a microcosm for Claudius’ reign, metaphorical for the emotional and moral split mirrors within his character – he appears composed and diplomatic, but in truth is full of corruption. This foreshadows greater moral conflict within the play and the duality of man

‘Hyperion to a satyr’

• Hamlet elevates old Hamlet in comparison to Claudius by using hyperbolic classical imagery. In Greek mythology, Hyperion is a great and powerful titan, an emblem of supreme power with divine status - whilst a satyr is a man-goat, associated with being ugly and lecherous. Satyrs were emblems of lust and intoxication. Link to the seven deadly sins (including lechery/lust, avarice and envy). These vices were the foundations of morality in the medieval, Elizabethan and Jacobean periods – and were thought to consign one’s soul to hell​

• OH praised as ideal Renaissance ruler​ and epitome of medieval masculinity - leads to idealised reverence from Hamlet, who views his father as a paragon of masculinity. John Russel asserts that ‘Hamlet reveres his father as though he were far removed from the merely human’

• A powerful and radiant leader figure replaced by a grotesque and animalistic one – highlights dichotomy in both physical state but also in dignity – Claudius is not just worse than Hamlet, but is beneath human decency –references the decay or morality within society and constructs a strong emotional contrast that mirrors Hamlet’s internal conflict ​

• This disrupts the Great Chain of Being, in which Elizabethans inherited from medieval theology the concept of a hierarchical chain of being – where failure to apply reason reduces humans to an animalistic state of being, governed by appetite and instinct. A human that falls below the level of man into the realm of bestiality is labelled a monster​

• Links to the microcosm/macrocosm medieval theory

• OH as further epitomised through his costume - dressed not as he died, but in his ‘armour’ from a heroic battle 30 years ago. The military and powerful connotations of ‘armour’ inherently aligns with the role of an Elizabethan man as stoic, powerful and dominant. Knox expressed this view within his work
  (However Shapiro suggests that OH’s armour is antiquated, representing a bygone era of masculinity that is no longer applicable to Hamlet … Hamlet therefore idolises his father’s conventional masculinity in a nostalgic sense, rather than with the desire to emulate this)

Claudius repent?

‘O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven’

• The adjective ‘rank’ connotes rottenness or disease, establishing Claudius’ corruption as an infection of his morality. This creates a great dichotomy between the pure and religious imagery evoked through the notion of ‘heaven’, and the use of the archaic biblical ‘O’. Has Claudius tainted heaven through his usurpation of the divine right to rule. Reflects his own corruption of the soul, transcendent to a biblical level (link to 'unweeded garden... things rank and gross in nature', both the cause and embodiment of spiritual decay)​

• Breakdown linguistically from Claudius’ first speech, interrogation of his diction and rhetoric to show a loss of control (over the Kingdom and over his own conscience). Claudius’ first speech was marked by balanced clauses and legalistic syntax, yet in A3s3 these dissolves into language of confession and lack of control. High frequency of exclamative - reflects governance by emotion rather than logic​

• Claudius’ inability to pray here could be interpreted by audiences of the time as Claudius’ damnation, and God’s refusal to grant him grace(McEvoy)​

Hamlet as feminine - does Hamlet love Ophelia?

• Ophelia also provides a manifestation of Hamlet's masculinity, which he must reject in order to execute his revenge. Jaques Lacan argues that the etymology of 'Ophelia is o'phallus'; she exists as the symbiotic double of masculinity. This perhaps explains Hamlet's rejection of Ophelia which Rutter argues seems so unfair. The economy of language in 'I loved you not' mirrors the barrenness that it describes, is highlighted by the end stopped line and brevity of language to emphasise Hamlet’s finality in his assertion. This is reminiscent of Shakespeare’s other works, such as Lady Macbeth, who must purge herself of femininity in order to commit her atrocious acts. As femininity is the antithesis of masculinity in the 1500s, through his rejection of Ophelia, Hamlet proves himself to be a man capable of the task he has been assigned

• Sue Hemming highlights Shakespeare's use of Fortinbras to expose Hamlet's lack of masculinity. The nominal determinism of Fortinbras, 'strong arm', immediately proves Hamlet to be the weaker of the two. At the beginning of the play, Act 1 Scene 2, Claudius' claim 'tis unmanly grief', immediately indicates the importance of a rejection of emotional responses which Hamlet is so afflicted by. (Many Shakespearean tragedies explore a deep-rooted patriarchal anxiety about female power, the threats of this, and the subsequent male effeminisation. In Elizabethan era, emotion equated with femininity rather than masculinity - derived from the condition of hysteria)

• Perhaps Shakespeare uses the femininity of Hamlet to explore the Humanist arguments at the time for a new kind of king, one not involved in the masculine fighting, but involved in thought and philosophy. In this way, Ophelia is used once again as a tool, exploring Hamlet's struggle with masculine ideals.​

Hamlet’s struggle with language

'Why she, even she - '​

• The smooth literary elegance of a scholar is disrupted by this fragmented, self-interrupting rhythm of speech. The caesuras halt the flow of the line, however it is still contained within the metrical scheme of iambic pentameter.​

• Therefore, Hamlet’s verse manages to be both powerful, innovative and contradictory, mirroring the internal conflict and complexity of the human mind​

• Beginning of soliloquy in iambic pentameter, then transitioned into prose - fluctuation between the two. Prose was typically used for lower status or comic characters, perhaps reflecting an emotional and moral degradation in Hamlet’s character, or conversely a degradation in his opinion on his mother (prose = ordinary metrical structure used for lower class characters)​

• Throughout this first soliloquy Hamlet's speech jumps and roils around, allowing interjections, playing with allusions and puns, becoming frequently side-tracked by this or that image. This tendency of Hamlet’s, to become side tracked by his own train of thoughts, is crucial to the play, and crucial to the central motivational mystery of Hamlet – the delay of revenge and his inaction.

• Acts as a microcosm for wider doubt and inaction in the play

Metatheatre/The Mouse Trap

• Central theme exploring the intersection of performance and reality, blurring the lines between the characters and the audience. ​

• Shakespeare's use of metatheatre through The Mousetrap exposes the tension between truth and performance, as Hamlet’s manipulation of theatre mirrors the play’s broader preoccupation with deception and unstable identities​

• Mirror imagery – Hamlet wants the play to “hold as ‘twere the mirror up to nature’, with the purpose of acting to reflect truthfully what human beings are like, not to exaggerate or distort reality – just as a ‘mirror’ reflects and does not distort reality. This is an early statement of mimesis, the representation of life through art. Hamlet’s obsession with acting also mirrors Renaissance humanist concerns with selfhood and performance (all the world’s a stage)​

• The effect of Hamlet instructing the players to act truthfully establishes irony, as he himself has assumed an ‘antic disposition’ and is feigning madness – a conflicted character. Shakespeare therefore blurs the boundaries between acting on stage and acting in real life – suggesting that everyone in Elsinore is performing a role, and that life itself (whether conscious or unconscious) is theatrical.​

• Coleridge: ‘Hamlet’s intellect paralyses him – The Mousetrap is an intellectual exercise rather than decisive action’ (action vs inaction)​

• This scene operates a place about mid-way through the third act, a position in which Shakespeare frequently set climactic action. Dramatic development up until the climax in which the King stops the play​

• Placement of the Mousetrap after a long stretch of uncertainty 

Horatio as a ‘perfect friend’

'Whose blood and judgement are so well commeddled'​

•  Horatio acts as a harbinger of truth in the play, and an educated scholar. Contextually, one who becomes overcome by emotion and loses touch with reality is reduced to a bestial state within the Great Chain of Being, degradation of morality​

• Fortune is not in charge of Horatio, as it is for Hamlet (‘not a pipe for Fortune’s finger’). Returning lexical field of instruments to describe fate.  Hamlet ruled by emotion and fate, Horatio ruled by agency and logic.​

• Shakespeare presents the bond between Hamlet and Horatio as an example of the classical ideal of friendship, drawing Renaissance humanist ideas such as alter ispe - meaning ‘another self’. This concept originates from writers like Cicero and Aristotle, who described perfect friendship (‘Amicita perfecta’) as a relationship between two men who share the same moral virtues and intellectual harmony, embodying ‘one soul in two bodies’. This is based on classical depiction of ideal friendship, with feelings so intense that it seems almost romantic to the modern eye​
  Limmer: perfect friendship between Hamlet and Horatio - necessity that this is between exclusively two individuals

• Strength of a more sensitive masculinity embodied through their ‘perfect’ classical friendship - use of a divine lexical field ‘flights of angels’ elevates Hamlet through Horatio’s eyes as a ‘sweet prince’

• This philosophical and spiritual connection juxtaposes Rosencrantz and Guildenstern – who act as instruments of Claudius rather than independent moral agents, thus destroying the mutual trust essential to ‘amicita perfecta’. This weakens their male friendship with Hamlet

Horatio as a representation of education

'Thou art a scholar, speak to it Horatio'​

• Spirits considered to speak Latin, Horatio as a scholar is the only one that would have known this​

Political instability at the time when Shakespeare was writing. Hamlet reflects the unstable political figure, Horatio juxtaposes this image.​

Growing interest in humanism and rational thought, which valued the study of classical literature and philosophy, as well as scientific inquiry. Horatio is therefore the representation of intellect within the play. Intellectually uncorrupted by emotion.

Laertes = revenge hero

• 'I'll be revenged most thoroughly for my father' (as a foil to Hamlet, highlights Hamlet's inaction – however is he governed by the heart over the head and therefore degraded within the Great Chain of Being) Laertes is arguably free from ethical scruples when playing the revenge hero​

• 'To hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil! … I dare damnation'  (Use of exclamative to show passion and perhaps uncontrolled emotion – his willingness to 'dare damnation' stands in direct contrast to Hamlet's deep anxiety about the afterlife and morality of murder)​

• Bradley: Laertes is the convention 'revenger.' He is  the typical 'man of action,' who is not given to reflection and who does not question the morality of the act of revenge

Fortinbras revenge

‘Of unimproved mettle hot and full... sharked up a list of landless resolutes'​

• Actively seeking revenge and rectify the damage done to Norway through his father’s death and loss of their land ​

• The use of hendiadys (use of ‘and’ between two verbs or nouns) adds emphasis and gravity to Young Fortinbras’ motivation – he is both ‘hot and full’ with the desire to avenge his father. In this context, ‘hot’ bears connotations to his anger and ability to become dangerous​

• ‘Sharked up’ characterises young Fortinbras as a powerful predator with a vicious army, as ‘shark’ bears connotations of blood and brutality – thus depicting young Fortinbras as bloodthirsty and with a revengeful spirit. This escalates the sense of danger surrounding his character, subsequently heightening the audience’s fear​

• However, this hot-headed pursuit of rectification could exemplify weaknesses of thought or logic within his character; governed by the heart over the head. (Degradation within the Great Chain of Being, almost animalistic). Fortinbras is leading his army to fight over an ‘egg-shell’, a worthless piece of land, prepared to waste the lives of himself and his 20,000men to restore his family honour and pride. Whilst this is arguably a great public show of family loyalty, it could be considered foolish, and merely an attempt to restore social and political standings rather than tactically or meaningfully react to his fathers’ death. Placement of scenes is important. We experience Hamlet's inaction, then Fortinbras' action, which prompts Hamlet's action.​

Madness

• Ophelia as a foil to Hamlet, used by madness, rather than Hamlet who uses madness. The device of madness could be used by Shakespeare as are presentation of female autonomy and the patriarchy. Hamlet has autonomous control over his madness, able to manipulate it to his own advantage within society, whilst Ophelia is a victim of madness – vulnerability of women and lack of agency. This is even more potent when considered with Rutter’s idea that Ophelia ‘performs… the psychic journey of Hamlet’ - she is able to enact the very behaviours that he cannot. Hamlet considers madness and an ‘antic disposition’, but Ophelia lives it for real. Hamlet toys with the idea of suicide, however it is Ophelia herself who actually commits suicide. Camden suggests that despite the reality of Ophelia’s madness, she is a marginalised figure - whereas Hamlet’s feigned madness dominates the play. Influence of gender roles within society - the assumption that masculinity is dominant and femininity is subordinate.

• (Converse interpretation of madness as providing Ophelia with autonomy, where madness becomes a method of spreading contagion at court -‘she may strew/dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds’, Ophelia is powerful in this moment. Shakespearean tragedies explore deep patriarchal anxieties about female power, their potential threat, and the consequent male effeminisation)​

• During the Elizabethan era, mental illness was poorly understood, and often attributed to wither supernatural entities, moral failings or humoral imbalances​

• Madness for Ophelia is not liberation, it is the only space left to her when rational discourse is closed off. Her insanity exposes oppression rather than transcending it​

'Something is rotten in the state of Denmark' ​

• Link to the microcosm/macrocosm medieval theory , but also how Denmark acts as a microcosm for wider society and humanity

• Marcellus crystallises the sense of unease that the Danes are experiencing. The effect of this line being spoken by a minor character explores how corruption is felt across all levels of society, that Claudius’ evil has the ability to permeate the entirety of Denmark​

• Denmark’s ‘rotten’ core is a tangible manifestation of the corruption that taints Elsinore court, a hot bed of spiritual and political corruption

• ‘Rotten’ as an adjective with connotations of filth and impurity acts as a synecdoche for moral and political corruption within Denmark. The core of this country has become spoiled and decayed, revealing that the natural order was disrupted with the death of Old Hamlet. This implies that Claudius’ reign is unnatural even before the ghost reveals the truth. This links to a degradation within the Great Chain of Being

'Denmark's a prison' Hamlet​

• Prison repeated throughout as a profound metaphor, through which Hamlet’s rhetorical adeptness transforms political geography into a psychological space – Shakespeare invites audiences to consider not only the literal confines of the court, but also the emotional and existential confines that permeate his psyche​

• Condemnation of the world, appearing as a man trapped – in his own family situation, in his own flesh, and in the world. A psychoanalytic interpretation suggests that Hamlet’s own mind becomes a symbol of self-imposed paralysis and overthinking. It is instead his own intellect and conscience that restrain him, rather than the corruption of society [Romantic critics such as Coleridge viewed Hamlet as ‘a man living in thought rather than action’ - Denmark becomes a projection of his mental confinement]​

• Spiritually imprisoned in the claustrophobic atmosphere of Elsinore and the ‘rotten’ state of Denmark​

• Descriptions of the world as a prison echoes radical forms of ancient Gnosticism, within which the material world was viewed as a prison containing misleading sparks of the divine​

• Prison – connotations of evil and corruption

‘Then, venom, to thy work!’ (+ ending of the play)

• The moment in which Hamlet finally performs his work of revenge - however is this truly what happened?
  Harold Bloom interpretations that Claudius is not slain as an act of vengeance – only as a final entropy of the plotted shuffling. Claudius is wounded by Hamlet using the sword that Claudius himself poisoned

• The staging of the final duel intensifies the sense of inevitability, with the physicality of the poisoned sword and cup giving physical manifestation to the corruption that has long infected the Danish court. The stage directions, full of chaotic energy – scuffling, drinking, accidental cuts – reflects the uncontrollability of violence once unleashed. Shakespeare’s structural choice to have all principal characters die in quick succession evokes the catastrophic purges of classical tragedy but, by embedding the deaths within a scene of confusion and error rather than clear moral retribution, he resists any simple equation of death with justice. The tragic arc is ultimately completed in a way that leaves moral ambiguities unresolved 

• Shapiro: the weaponry used in the final duel represents a newer way of fighting. It was only in the second half of the 16th century that the rapier replaced the heavy sword as the weapon of choice - wasn’t until the 1580s until the weapons of the rapier and dagger became popular in England

• Harold Bloom: Hamlet as a tragedy of consciousness rather than a tragedy of action (‘What is Hamlet’s tragedy? It is the tragedy of having a consciousness that cannot be reduced to a single action’). By presenting the ending as simultaneously tragic, political and existential, Shakespeare transcends the conventions of revenge tragedy to create a work that interrogates the nature of action, mortality and meaning itself – the conclusion of the play, rather than resolving tensions, intensifies them – leaving the audience with a vision of human fragility 

• Political resonance of the final scene would have been potent for Shakespeare’s original audience, aware of Elizabeth I’s childlessness and the anxieties surrounding succession crisis. The play, written at the turn of the seventeenth century, thus captures the deep unease about the fragility of dynastic stability and the vulnerability of nations in the absence of clear legitimate rule 
  Greenblatt - ‘The death of Hamlet signals not only the end of an individual but the passing of a world, and the anxious hope for a stable succession’ 

• Shapiro: Shakespeare is sensitive to moment of epochal change, conveying what it means to live in the bewildering space between familiar past and murky future.

Hamlet mediation on death

‘Alexander returneth to dust, the dust is earth, of earth we make loam’

• Recognises the past identity of the tangible remains of death, acts as a conclusion or closure to his mediation, especially given the fact that his death is imminent 

• Shakespeare uses dramatic prose at this point, prose associated with commoners. Therefore, the conversation between Hamlet and the Gravedigger is stripped back and bare, taking away superfluous linguistic fancy. This could reflect how death equalises everything and everyone, a nihilistic perspective that humbles Hamlet in this moment.  

• Death as an equaliser – status becomes negligible. Use of Alexander the Great as symbolism of imperial conquest and supreme human ambition - the image of even a monumental figure falling highlights the futility of Hamlet’s quest for revenge 

• But: logical progression from ‘dust’ to ‘earth’ to ‘loam’ - Hamlet is no longer fearful about the unknown, tone seems calm, rational and detached – examining the physical rather than fearing the hypothetical. syntactic parallels = grounded and controlled

‘A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a King’ (about Polonius)

• Death equalises all. Hamlet poetically states that regardless of social status during life, all men die and are consumed by maggot in the grave. Death is blind to power and privilege 

• Grotesque imagery of decay

• Allusion to Martin Luther’s doctrine Diet of the Worms. Martin Luther was a Dean at Wittenberg University, showcasing Hamlet’s intelligence and rhetorical adeptness 

• Link to Hamlet’s treatment of Polonius’ body. ‘lug the guts’ - determiner ‘the’ as dehumanising, phonological harshness of plosive ‘g’ reinforces brutality, blunt syntax. Contrasts sharply with the reverence traditionally afforded to bodies in early modern Christian culture

• Marrett: Hamlet is prevented from committing suicide by his religious obedience to The Commandment ‘thou shalt not kill’, which was thought to include ‘self-murder’ 

Does Hamlet love Ophelia?

(Yes)

• Hamlet tries to protect Ophelia through his ‘antic disposition’. Whilst his insult ‘get thee to a nunnery’ implies Ophelia’s impurity or loss of chastity, it may conversely suggest that this is the only place where Ophelia will remain safe - under the watch of God himself

• Hamlet’s further insult of Polonius as a ‘fishmonger’ degrades Polonius’ humanity within the great chain of being. If we consider this insult to be directed towards Polonius’ treatment of Ophelia, then ‘fishmonger’ may be a pun on ‘fleshmonger’ - Polonius’ attempts to tender Ophelia through keeping her chaste. Rogers suggests that in this sense, Ophelia is Polonius’ pawn.

(No)

• James Russell Lowell invites audiences to question the authenticity of Hamlet’s love for Ophelia - we should ‘doubt it rather than believe it’, contrary to ‘doubt that the sun doth move’. William Flazlitt reinforces this interpretation, but extends upon it - suggesting that it is not simply the fact that Hamlet does not love Ophelia, but that he is not capable of love. Flazlitt believes Hamlet is the ‘prince of philosophical speculation’ - he is a quintessential thinker, and is therefore unable to love because he will dissect the emotion until it becomes another philosophical dilemma that he intends to overcome through reason and logic

• Ophelia also provides a manifestation of Hamlet's masculinity, which he must reject in order to execute his revenge. Jaques Lacan argues that the etymology of 'Ophelia is o'phallus'; she exists as the symbiotic double of masculinity. This perhaps explains Hamlet's rejection of Ophelia which Rutter argues seems so unfair. The economy of language in 'I loved you not' mirrors the barrenness that it describes, is highlighted by the end stopped line and brevity of language to emphasise Hamlet’s finality in his assertion. This is reminiscent of Shakespeare’s other works, such as Lady Macbeth, who must purge herself of femininity in order to commit her atrocious acts. As femininity is the antithesis of masculinity in the 1500s, through his rejection of Ophelia, Hamlet proves himself to be a man capable of the task he has been assigned

Ethics/morality of revenge
Hamlet as a revenger

• The pursuit of revenge is a prominent motif within ‘Hamlet’, where the storyline revolves around Prince Hamlet’s pursuit of retribution against his uncle Claudius, whom he suspects of murdering his father and seizing the throne. During the course of the play, Hamlet grapples with his inclination for vengeance, critically examining its moral validity and dreading the repercussions of his deeds

• The existence of the ghost in Hamlet served as the primary impetus for the concept of retribution, as well as a representation of destiny - Ghost’s revelation of his true identity to Hamlet ‘I am the spirit of your father…’

• Shakespeare sets up Hamlet’s character as a ‘revenger’ to allow him the opportunity to explore his masculinity through this specific trope (as a representation of Elizabethan society reproducing rigid gender roles)

• In the 1600s, the role expected of a man in Hamlet’s situation would be to avenge his father by killing Claudius, where typical expectations of masculinity promoted action and strength of decision

• Hamlet’s linguistics expose difficulties in aligning with the archetypal masculine stereotype of a ‘revenger’. Within his opening soliloquy, the form of Hamlet’s speech also parallels his lack of action - shifting from iambic pentameter into prose, which was associated with the lower classes or common speech that lacked the intellect or morality necessary to effectuate revenge