Hamlet

For a great summary of Hamlet, you need look no further than the closing remarks of the character, Horatio.

“So shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters, Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook Fall’n on th’ inventors’ heads.”

The whole plot is filled with acts of violence, murder, vengeance, guilt, and deceit. It takes place against the backdrop of war between the armies of Denmark and Norway, during the late Middle Ages (14th and 15th centuries). It is primarily set within and around the castle of Elsinore, Denmark. King Hamlet and his Queen Gertrude formerly ruled the court. However, a serpent allegedly stung the King whilst he was napping in an orchard, and he unfortunately died. As a result, his brother Claudius married Queen Gertrude (his former sister in law – yikes!) and becomes the new King of Denmark.
Something fascinating to note is that Hamlet was originally published in three editions:

• Q1, or ‘The First Quarto’ (1603)
• Q2, or ‘The Second Quarto’ (1604)
• F1, or ‘The First Folio’ (1623)

Most modern versions of the play are a conflation of Q2 and F1. Initially, Q1 was originally thought to be a faulty version copied from the memory of one of the actors. However, modern scholars believe that it’s not necessarily the inferior version, but more like a ‘performing’ version of the play, as it has a much more dramatic plot.

Initially, the guards of the castle and Horatio encourage Hamlet to wait until midnight to witness the reappearing ghost dressed in King Hamlet’s armour. Hamlet complies and meets the vengeful apparition of his father’s ghost who divulges the real details of his death; Claudius poisoned him in an orchard so that he could marry Gertrude via an incestuous act, and ultimately become King of Denmark. The dead king then urges Hamlet to take revenge for his murder by killing Claudius and becoming the rightful King. In order to achieve this, Hamlet pretends to be insane throughout the play. His thoughts are filled with contemplation about the meaning of life and of the nature of existence.
 

Though this madness is depicted as a tactic in Hamlet’s revenge plot, the other characters begin to theorise other possible reasons. Polonius, Claudius’ right- hand-man, believes that it is Hamlet’s love and obsession for his daughter, Ophelia that has caused his madness. Polonius tells Ophelia to avoid Hamlet to save herself some heartache, because according to Polonius, Hamlet would ultimately reject a lower-class woman like her. Meanwhile, Polonius’ son, Laertes travels to France, where he is studying with an expert swordsman.

As part of Hamlet’s grand plan to expose Claudius, he initiates a scheme when a group of actors arrived at the castle. He provides the “players” with a monologue that imitated the murder of his father in the hopes that it would make Claudius feel guilty and ultimately confess, acting as an allegory for the play itself. Claudius gets progressively more uncomfortable during the play, revealing he is guilty of committing fratricide through a soliloquy.

When Gertrude confronts Hamlet about his plans, they engage in a heated argument about her unfaithful and incestuous behaviour with Claudius. However, Polonius spies on them from behind a tapestry in order to discover the real reasons for Hamlet’s insanity so that he can report back to Claudius. It is at this point in the play that the audience really begins to question Hamlet’s mental state. He insists that the ghost of his father is in the room and divulges to Gertrude the details of his revenge plot. However, Gertrude cannot actually see the ghost. At this point, audiences are made to believe that Hamlet is pretending to be insane, though his true madness comes to fruition in this scene. At the climax, Hamlet stabs Polonius from behind the tapestry, thinking that it was Claudius. As a consequence of Polonius’ death, his daughter Ophelia falls deeper into her own madness. Meanwhile, Claudius sends Hamlet away to England for some ‘rest and recovery,’ but has a secret plan to have him killed while he is there. He finds out, and instead forges a letter so that Guildenstern and Rosencrantz are murdered instead. Ophelia’s sadness deepens, and she ultimately drowns in a possible suicide attempt. As two gravediggers are digging her plot, Hamlet and Horatio find them, though Hamlet is unaware of Ophelia’s death. He further contemplates his life, when he finds Yorick’s skull – a very popular symbol in Hamlet. The old jester of the court led to Hamlet’s ultimate examination of his own existence, and awareness of his own mortality.

In the last act, a fencing duel takes place between Hamlet and Laertes, who had come home from France to avenge his now dead father and sister. He and Claudius plot to poison Hamlet via a cut from with the tip of Laertes’ blade. A goblet is also filled with poison in another attempt to murder Hamlet. However, during the fencing match, Gertrude drinks from the poisoned goblet and dies instantly. The poisoned blade scars both Hamlet and Laertes, while Claudius is stabbed by Hamlet, leading to their simultaneous deaths as well. Once nearly everyone has been killed, the story concludes with Fortinbras arriving from Poland to take his share of the land for Norway.