Hamlet Synopsis

Theme: Trying to take matters of life and death into one's own hands will only lead to self destruction.

Author:
Willam Shakespeare

Setting:
Denmark, no specific time is mentioned, so we should assume the 1500s since that's when Shakespeare was alive. The action takes place in the palace of Denmark and the grounds.

Plot Overview:
The old king of Denmark, Hamlet, has died recently, and his Queen, Gertrude, has married his brother, Claudius  the new King of Denmark. Young Hamlet, the protagonist, isn't very happy about this development, but becomes even more obsessed over their marriage when he is visited by his father's ghost, who says that he was murdered by Claudius. He the pretends to be mad while he figures out whether he should kill Claudius or not. While he is deciding this, he uses a play to decide if the ghost was honest about the death, makes Ophelia, his love, believe that he doesn't love her anymore, harasses his mother over her decision to marry Claudius  and messes with Polonius, Rosencranz, and Guildenstern, only because they are loyal to the king and will betray him in his mind. These things lead to Ophelia going insane and drowning herself, and Polonius, Rozencrantz and Guildenstern to die. Eventually, the king plots to get Hamlet out of the way with a duel between Hamlet and Laertes, Ophelia's brother. This duel ends in a bloodbath, where Gertrude, Laertes, Claudius, and Hamlet die.

Characters:
Hamlet: The protagonist of the play; the prince of Denmark. He is loved by the people, and smart too, but often too smart for his own good. Decision making is hard for him because he must work out all of the outcomes in his mind first and choose which one is best. Sometimes, he doesn't know which outcome will happen, and this puts him in a stalled state. This is what happens when he is confronted by his father's ghost. Hamlet idealized his parent's marriage, so at first he wants to act imediatly, but his senses kick in soon. Can he handle the responsibility of taking away someone's life, even if they are a horrible person? He acts insane to cover up his internal thoughts to the world as he mulls over this question, but as it continues to hang over him, his character changes a bit. He plots and manipulates everyone around him in order to convince himself killing Claudius is justified. But after Ophelia dies, and Horatio becomes sad that Hamlet is becoming just like Claudius, he realizes the error of his ways, and decides to just let fate unfold instead. He does kill Claudius in the end, but only in a rash act when he knows Claudius is responsible for his death and his mother's.
Claudius: The current king of Denmark and husband of Gertrude. He killed his own brother in order to become Gertrude's husband and have a chance at becoming king of Denmark. He is compared to a serpent by Old Hamlet's ghost, and he definitely lives up to this name. Since the people love Hamlet and not him, he acts kind and welcoming in order to gain their favor. Since he is also clever, he suspects Hamlet is up to something and has many people spy on him on order to figure out if Hamlet is a threat to his status. Even in the scene where he prays to god for forgiveness over the murder, he admits he didn't really mean them.
Polonius: He is the king's adviser, and shares many personality traits with him. He is also someone who must plot out everything, but he must plan things out even more than Claudius for security. Also, although he must plan things to the very last detail unlike Claudius, he isn't quite as smart as Claudius. When Polonius insists that Hamlet's insanity is because of his love for Ophelia, Claudius is more perceptive and sees that Hamlet could be a threat. Also, in Hamlets fake insanity, he is able to insult Polonius without him noticing. He does notice something is slightly different about Hamlet's craziness, he still can't tell Hamlet is dropping hints about Ophelia and downright insulting him. His downfall is ironically because of his plotting, which was meant to save his behind.
Gertrude: The wife of Claudius, and Hamlet's mother. She mainly serves as an object of affection for the men of the play. She can be compared to Eve, because she was "tempted" by the serpent (Claudius) and seems to repent after Hamlet yells at her in her closet. However, it is also possible to say that she never really loves anyone and is just there to tempt men, as the line "The lady protests too much, methinks" suggests. She could have just felt bad about upsetting Hamlet in the closet scene. I'm not sure which argument to believe yet. It is also possible Hamlet has some sort of Oedipal complex with her.
Ophelia: She is Hamlet's love, and goes insane when he rejects her. The most likely reasons why he doesn't want her anymore is because either he doesn't want to infect her with the corrupt royalty of Denmark, or he is dissolutioned with all women because of his mother. It is most likely they had sex, because she drowns herself and passes out symbolic flowers.
Horatio: Hamlet's only true friend and ally in the play. He cares for Hamlet greatly, but becomes increasingly concerned over him as Hamlet's character changes. The only honest and kind person in the play.
Laertes: Ophelia's brother, Polonius's son. He plots with Claudius out of grief to kill Hamlet, who killed Polonius and drove his sister to suicide. Later, he feels bad for plotting and his plan backfires on him anyway. May have had sexual feelings towards Ophelia.
Rozencrantz and Guildenstern: Pawns of the king, and Hamlet's old friends. Hamlet rejects them after they spy on him for the king, even if it was really for good intentions. He has them killed in order to stop them from meddling, which leads Horatio to doubt him.
Old Hamlet's Ghost: He tells Hamlet of a "most foul and unnatural murder"

Voice and Style:
There isn't really a specific voice, because it is a play. Each character has their own personality, which I have already explained above. However, Shakespeare frequently uses figurative language and abiguity in all of the character's lines. It takes several readings of a passage sometimes to figure out what exactly the figurative language is saying, and then which of the double meanings to believe.

Quotes:
"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark"

This is spoken by Marcellus, when he is with Horatio watching Hamlet follow the ghost. It foreshadows how most of the characters will act within the state of Denmark for the rest of this play.

 "What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?"

Hamlet is in despair, realizing that even though mankind is so advanced, to him it is nothing but dust, because all men will eventually die. This is his depressed state he feels at the beginning of the play, and later at the end when he sees the skull.

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks"

The queen says this after the play Hamlet puts on where the player queen is confessing her undying love to the player king, who is supposed to be old Hamlet. This is evidence for Hamlet's ideal marriage between his mother and father to not be true, and could support the idea that she is a temptress.

Prompt #1986 Edit

1986. Some works of literature use the element of time in a distinct way. The chronological sequence of events may be altered, or time may be suspended or accelerated. Choose a novel, an epic, or a play of recognized literary merit and show how the author's manipulation of time contributes to the effectiveness of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.

The novel A Prayer for Owen Meany uses a nonlinear narrative to reveal the characteristics of Owen Meany in order to reveal his characteristics gradually instead of at the beginning of the book. The book is set in the present from the perspective of John, Owen's best friend, but most of the book flashes back to when John and Owen were boys, and within those flashbacks are flashbacks to when John's mom was alive, since she died at the beginning of the book. These flashbacks show both how Owen influences John currently, and how John's mom influenced both of the boys growing up.

In the present day, Owen Meany's past actions directly lead to John's current status. A flashback shows the reader that John wasn't very good in school as a boy, but Owen was the best student in his class. Once high school came around, Owen was invited to gravestone academy, a private school for better students. John, on the other hand, would only be invited if he spent his freshman year in public school and then entered the next year as a freshman again. Owen decided to do the same in order to keep helping John with schoolwork.  John felt like Owen threw his chances away, but Owen wanted to stick with his only friend and show him how to succeed in school. John did get better in school, as a result of Owen's tutoring, and went on to college. However, the Vietnam War was on the rise, so young men were getting drafted every day. In order for John to avoid the draft, Owen cut off his finger with the Meany's stone cutting tools. John, determined to take advantage of the studying he did with Own and the time given to him by avoiding the draft, becomes an English teacher. English was the hardest subject for him growing up, but with Owen's friendship, it became his strongest.

John's mom dies at the very beginning of the novel to emphasize that even after she is gone, her presence is still with the two boys as they grow up. After her sudden death at a baseball game, Owen shows his guilt by chopping off the hands of their favorite toy armadillo, symbolizing how John's mom left an empty space in their lives. The two boys also give up baseball because she died at a baseball game. Later on, flashbacks reveal tiny personality traits about his mom. For example, John remembers how she always sewed her own clothes in black and white, and he remembers how even when it rained on her wedding to his stepfather, Dan, she still was happy. When John thinks back on how cautious his mother was with Dan, he also is haunted by the mystery of his father, whom his mother had a one night stand with. With Owen's help, he pieces together the memories of the baseball game and hints they learn across the years, and they finally discover his identity. John proves it by using the mannequin she used to make clothes on and the baseball that killed her to make the minister, his father, believe he is seeing her ghost. Her mysterious past continues to haunt the minister as well as Owen and John for the whole novel.

The non-linear narrative of A Prayer for Owen Meany not only keeps the reader guessing about how events in the past will drive future events forward, it also emphasizes how much John, his mom, and Owen love each other, even after death. Although the structure is confusing while reading, by the end of the novel the reader can predict the overall outcome because of the foreshadowing the past events gave, while still being suspenseful. This structure made the story much more meaningful and memorable.

 

Response to Course Material

This past month has been all about Hamlet. When we were reading it in class, I hated it, because I only understood the basic plot, which was pretty boring. But now, after annotating, I actually like Hamlet. The characters are all very complex and I love how we can interpret their motives. Hamlet himself seems to be the hardest character to understand, because of the war going on inside of him over whether he should sink down to Claudius's level in order to seek revenge, or if he should be rational and be above that sort of behavior.
The first movie we watched was boring a lot of the time, but I'm not sure exactly what made it so different from the second one. Maybe it was because I still needed to read deeper into Hamlet more when we watched it. The only scene I liked better in the old version was the Ophelia scene. She physically hands flowers to each of the people in the room in that version, but in the new one, she stares at Laertes and doesn't even have real flowers. The whole symbolism is lost there; instead they just flash a picture of her and Hamlet in bed. Also, why do they have a completely cushioned room in the castle specifically for crazy people? Anyway, I hope we watch more Hamlet movies.