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Summary Hamlet Essay Plans
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Summary of 17 pages for the course Unit 1 - Drama at PEARSON (Hamlet Essay Plans)
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Essay Plans and PointsHow is Claudius presented throughout the play?
1.Deceptive 2. Corrupting 3. An unfit ruler Overall: The Usurper
1. Deceptive
Evidence and Analysis:
Act 3 Scene 3: ‘O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven. It hath the primal eldest curse
upon’t. A brother’s murder. Pray can I not.’
Biblical Allusion to Cain and Able through word play. This is as the use of ‘eldest curse’
applies to the first crime, as well as the fact Cain was the eldest brother. Claudius isn’t, but
he’s taking on that role as the one on the throne.
Act 1 Scene 2: ‘our whole kingdom to be contracted in one brow of woe.’
He’s using the royal collective to make himself look like caring king but we know he’s not.
‘Contacted’ suggests they have to, speaking to his inner lack of care for the previous King’s
death
Form:
In revenge plays, the antagonist is often a high member of the court, and the tension comes
from the fact that the revenger is one of the few people who knows the reality. As MACK
writes, the play is about appearance in relation to reality.
Context:
Despite the Catholic/Protestant divide going on, everyone would have been Christian, so
everyone would have got the biblical allusion. Also, deception of crimes was something
which was restricted a lot during the early 17th century, because criminals were branded on
their forehead or cheeks to physically stop them from hiding their crimes. Public executions
were for more serious offences, but were basically the same thing.
2. Corrupting
Evidence and Analysis:
Scene 4 Act 5: ‘I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died.’
Shows Polonius as loving, as violets are a symbol of faithfulness. As SMITH writes, he
seems to love his children, but he’s ‘totally corrupt.’ This may be because, as VARDY writes
‘there’s nothing Polonius isn’t prepared to do for the State of Denmark.’ Thus, as the head is
corrupt, he comes corrupt
Act 2 Scene 2 ‘At such a time I’ll loose my daughter to him.’
Double entendre of leaving them unchaperoned, but also putting two animals in heat together.
The personal pronoun disguises the fact this is because of Claudius. He risks Ophelia’s
chastity, and in the legend of Amleth, they sleep together, implying the sexual nature of this
interaction.
,Form:
In revenge tragedies, the antagonise often corrupts those underneath him.
Context:
Perhaps a message to the monarchs about their responsibility. The Divine Right of Kings was
around, and thus monarchs thought they could do no wrong. As HAZLITT writes, the play
was to vent Shakespeare’s fears, and a lot of people were fearing who was next in line after
Elizabeth died, which happened a few years after the play was first staged. The magna carter
was already in exitance, but the monarchy had a bunch of control.
3. An unfit ruler
Form:
The structure of the tragedy is that it moves from order to disorder, and Claudius’s job is to
keep order. Yet, he’s unable to stop it. In fact, according to BARKER, it’s implicit in his
regicide and usurpation.
Evidence and analysis:
Act 4, Scene 5: ‘pretty Ophelia-’
He’s cut off by someone below him, a woman below him! With her hair down, which was
known from the stage directions and would have been inappropriate.
Act 4 Scene 7: interrupted by Gertrude (another woman). He cannot command power, as
Gertrude’s messenger speech (form: tragedy, conforming to BRADLEY’s belief that
Shakespearean tragedy takes notes from classical tragedy), takes over the rest of the scene,
and is even the end of the Climax.
Context:
Women were below men, and kings were above men. Yet, Claudius is a bad leader as he
cannot preserve this order. The Holily of Obedience was said twice a year to reiterate to
everyone the importance of no social mobility.
Overall:
Shakespeare was close to James I, with him being a patron of his acting company. James I
faced a lot of threats, with the Gunpowder plot happening just a few years after Hamlet was
written. This is due to the Catholic/Protestant divide. So, he could have been sucking up by
making The Usurper look as bad as possible. SCOFIELD: he’s morally empty. He can’t pray,
and in the final scene, it’s revealed he doesn’t even care about Gertrude all that much.
, How is Old Hamlet presented throughout the play?
1.Ambigious 2. Old Heroism 3. Sympathetic Overall: Raises internal
conflict for Hamlet
1. Ambiguous
Evidence and Analysis-
He’s named as ‘the Ghost,’ not ‘Old Hamlet’
‘Revenge his most foul and unnatural murder’ – speaks to the divine right of kings and
regicide but uses the 3rd person. Is it really the King?
Context-
ALEXANDER believes the nature of the ghost is meant to be open to interpretation, whilst
HOLM takes the more binary approach that the Ghost is Catholicism and Hamlet is
Protestantism
Catholics believed ghosts were the souls of the recently departed, often with unfinished
business, who were in purgatory. Meanwhile, Protestants believed that ghosts were spirits
that took over the bodies of the recently deceased and targeted at specific people to tempt
them to hell.
Either way, the fear of ghosts was very real in Shakespeare’s England; they were believed to
be capable of driving those who saw them to madness or leading them into Hell.
England was Protestant, though it’s said Shakespeare’s father was Catholic.
Form-
In revenge plays the revenger gets instructions from a ghost, meaning it conforms to
conventions. However, in Act 3 Scene 4 Gertrude sees ‘nothing at all’ but in Act 1 the men
do. Structurally, as the play becomes more disordered (feeding into tragic conventions) the
ghost becomes more ambiguous.
2. Old Heroism
Evidence and Analysis-
In the first scene, he’s introduced ‘clad in complete armour, with its visor raised’ – allows
them to see his face, connotes the fact he’s a warrior.
He’s ‘dared to combat’ and is ‘our valiant Hamlet’ all for ‘a most emulate pride’ – shows
bravery and pride in the old king, making him old heroism, whilst our Hamlet is a thinker,
going back and forth, seeing in the chiasmus in ‘to be or not to be.’ As WEBSTER puts it,
Hamlet dramatizes his delay and inaction
In Act 3 Scene 4 he’s in his ‘nightgown,’ this could be said to contract this type of heroism,
but being able to balance war with domesticity, and kindness towards women and are elderly
were still important fasciitis of heroism. If we take a neoclassical approach, look at Achilles
and Priam.
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