Study QUESTIONS for HAMLET

THANKS FOR A GOOD CLASS EVERYONE. I THINK THERE WAS A LOT OF GOOD DISCUSSION GOING ON AND YOUR ANSWERS TO THE QUIZ WERE FINE.

1,For anyone who wasn't in class, below are the list of study questions that we discussed in groups in class. We only got to question 3 in the full class discussion and will continue on in that vein on Thursday.

2, ALSO, please consider the madness of Ophelia and Hamlet... Are they both mad? one or the other? PLease come to class Thursday with where you stand on the question and have proof (ie, lines from the play) to back up your decision. I'll look forward to hearing from you!

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HERE ARE THE STUDY QUESTIONS!


USE lines from the play to support your answers:

1, READ Act I, Scene II, lines 130 – 158, Comment on its importance in the play, how it sets everything up.


2. Hamlet faces a moral dilemma. The ghost of his father urges him to gain revenge by killing Claudius. But the questions he faces are these: Is the ghost trustworthy. Is it really the ghost of his father? Is it a demon? Is there really a ghost at all? How does he answer these questions for himself?

3. At Ophelia’s grave, Hamlet declares,

I loved Ophelia; forty thousand brothers

Could not, with all their quantity of love,

Make up my sum

Popular belief is that Hamlet did indeed love Ophelia and his love for her never changed. But why is it that he never makes reference to her in any of his soliloquies? Why does he say to her,

Get thee to a nunnery.
Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?
--- Act Three, Scene I, line 121.

When he kills Polonius, why does Hamlet not reflect that he has killed Ophelia’s father?


4. Why do you think Ophelia goes insane?

5. Hamlet puts on an “antic disposition”–that is, he pretends to be insane. But is he, in fact, insane or mentally unstable?

6 . Each of the main characters in the play loses a person important to them—Gertrude, Hamlet, Ophelia, Laertes. Describe how each dealt with their grief.

7. Is Gertrude loyal to Hamlet or to Claudius? Use Gertrude’s lines from the play to support your answer.

8. Does Claudius have any guilt for what he has done? Give me the lines.

9. Probe Hamlet’s mind. Then, attempt to explain why he acts as he does. True, his behavior is in large part a reaction to his father’s death and his mother’s marriage to Claudius. But what else bothers Hamlet? Is he angry because he himself did not succeed to the throne? Does the ghost cause him to dwell morbidly on death? Does he suddenly hate all women because of what his mother did?

10. Comment on the role of women in Hamlet. What might the feminists say?