Identify and Describe:

Horatio:

The Ghost:

Hamlet:

Gertrude:

Claudius:

Ophelia:

Laertes:

Polonius:

Rosencrantz:

Guildenstern:

Yorick:

Fortinbras:

Where does the story take place?

What does Hamlet believe about his father's death before meeting the Ghost? What does he believe after meeting the Ghost?

Give three reasons that Hamlet does NOT take action

A.

 

B.

 

C.

Give two examples that demonstrate that Hamlet MAY be "mad":

A.

 

B.

Give two examples that demonstrate that Hamlet is sane:

A.

 

B.

What effect does the "Play within the Play" have on Claudius…on Hamlet?

What happens to Ophelia after her father's death?

What plot does Claudius plan with Laertes?

How does Hamlet turn the plot to kill him in England around to foil Rosencrantz and Guildenstern?

How do the following die in the final scene:

Laertes:

 

Gertrude:

 

Claudius:

 

Hamlet:

In a Shakespearean tragedy, the hero always has a "fatal flaw". What is Hamlet's character flaw, that leads to his death?

What does this play say about the nature of "Revenge"?

Explain what each of the following quotations means in the context of the play: Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
Marcellus: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. More relative than this. The play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.
Hamlet: To be, or not to be- that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die- to sleep-
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die- to sleep.
To sleep- perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub!
King: It shall be so.
Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.
King: Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?
Hamlet: At supper.
King: At supper? Where?
Hamlet: Not where he eats, but where he is eaten.
A certain convocation of politic worms are e'en at him.
Your worm is your only emperor for diet.
We fat all creatures else to fat us,
and we fat ourselves for maggots.
Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service-
two dishes, but to one table. That's the end.
King: Alas, alas!
Hamlet: A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king,
and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.
King: What dost thou mean by this?
Hamlet: Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how
abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at
it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your
gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,

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