a level hamlet essay questions

by William Shakespeare

Hamlet essay questions.

Hamlet is widely hailed as the first modern play in the English language. Which characteristics of its central character might account for this label?

Hamlet is considered the first modern play partly because of the psychological depth of its main character -- Hamlet suffers from melancholy, self-doubt, and even delusions. The audience never quite knows what Hamlet is thinking, or what is real. In fact, Hamlet himself declares again and again that he doesn't understand his doubts either ("I have of late, but wherefore I know not , lost all my mirth.")

Death is a constant presence in this play. Does Hamlet's speech to Yorick's skull represent a philosophy of death? How does his attitude toward death differ from that of the gravediggers?

Death was a much more ordinary presence in Elizabethan England than it is in the modern world. Infant mortality was high and plagues swept whole nations. In this sense, the gravediggers exhibit a much more realistic approach to death than most people. Hamlet uses the occasion for a more general examination of mortality. His attitude toward death is not necessarily inconsistent with that of the gravediggers, but it is different in his emphasis on metaphysical rather than physical implications of death.

Does the text hold up to a Freudian reading of Hamlet's relationship with his mother? How does Hamlet's relationship with Ophelia support, complicate or work against an Oedipal interpretation of the play?

Certainly Hamlet does visit his mother's bedchamber, and is immensely interested in her sexual relationships with other men, both of which are classic elements of an Oedipal complex. Freud's reading of the play may have influenced his sexual theories—but it is important to remember the order of events, especially because scholars tend to label Hamlet "Freudian." Better stated, Freud is Shakespearean, not the other way around.

"To be or not to be" is the famous question that Hamlet poses in Act Three, Scene One. Explore this speech. What does he mean by this famous question? What events of the play prompt this speech?

Hamlet is musing about death, but whose death, or what kind of death, is frustratingly difficult to pin down. He is perhaps contemplating suicide, perhaps thinking about the risks he must run in order to fulfill the task of revenge. He has an audience of Ophelia, Polonius and Claudius, who are eavesdropping on him; but he most likely does not realize that they are present.

The play within a play, the long soliloquies wherein Hamlet faces the audience and speaks to them directly, the vivid discussions of whether or not Hamlet is "acting" mad -- there are many elements of Hamlet that call attention to its status as a play, rather than reality. By showing the trappings of theater and non-reality, does Shakespeare make Hamlet's suffering seem more acute or more distant? How?

"Life's but a stage," another Shakespearean character proclaims, and the playwright recognized quite well the dramatic trappings of life and the life-like elements of staged productions. Soliloquies are modern in that they break what is much later termed the "fourth wall" separating audience from stage; the character speaks directly to the audience. Although the whole atmosphere seems patently false and theatrical, this serves to draw Hamlet somehow closer. Somehow, the effect of such "metatheatrical" gestures is to show not how different acting is from life, but how similar life is to acting.

In terms of the usual categorizations, Shakespeare's tragedies end in death, his comedies in marriage. By this measure, Hamlet is a tragedy. But Shakespeare's best plays are a tragicomic mix. Choose and discuss two comical or farcical elements in Hamlet.

The scene with gravediggers is a good example of tragedy mixed with comedy. The work is morbid, but the workers joke and sing as they go about their business. They seem totally unaware of the majestic tragedy unfolding itself in the castle nearby. On a smaller level, Yorick's skull embodies the tragicomic dichotomy; it is a gruesome, deathly object that once belonged to a joker. There are several other comic scenes, including much of Hamlet's dialogue with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and most of Polonius' scenes before his death. This gruesome mixture of pathos and humor is the essence of Shakespearean theater.

Define revenge. Is Hamlet a traditional revenge play? What other forces are at work in Hamlet's psyche?

Revenge is traditionally the cold-blooded pursuit to make up for one hurt with a strike against its perpetrator. Revenge is usually violent. Hamlet is hardly a traditional play of revenge, because the main character is so uncertain and ambivalent about both the original strike and what he should do about it. Melancholy and uncertainty play just as large a role in Hamlet's character as the desire for revenge.

Discuss the setting of Hamlet. What effect does setting the psycho-drama in a bleak northern castle -- similar to that in Macbeth -- have on the characters and audience?

From the script, the audience gathers that Elsinore Castle is a remote place in northern Europe. Not much else is known: there were no sets in Shakespeare's time. But the setting certainly matches Hamlet's melancholy mood, and the isolation of the place helps make the violence and implied incest believable.

The play begins with the fantastical appearance of a ghost. Are we meant to believe that this is really Hamlet's father, or is he a figment of Hamlet's imagination? If he is imagined, is the rest of the play imagined as well?

Hamlet struggles with the question of whether the ghost is his father and decides that he must be who he says he is. The audience remains in doubt, however, because of the ghost's claim that he comes from Purgatory (blasphemous in Elizabethan England), and the fact that Gertrude is unable to see it when it appears to Hamlet in her chamber. One of the moral questions of the play is resolved, however, when it becomes clear that Claudius is a murderer. Whether the ghost is Old Hamlet or a demon, he has told the truth about Claudius' guilt.

Can a healthy state be presided over by a corrupt ruler? Shakespeare draws frequent comparisons between the moral legitimacy of a leader and the health of a state. Is Denmark's monarchy responsible for the demise of the state in this play?

At the end of the tragedy, it is not only Hamlet and most of the characters who die. The entire state of Denmark fails after Norway invades, and the health of the nation seems very much wrapped up with the moral state of the leader. This accords with the medieval idea of the "body politic" with the leader making up the head, literally, and the people the body of a personified state.

Hamlet Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Hamlet is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Closely examine Hamlet’s most famous soliloquy on page 137 (lines 57-91). Summarize the arguments he is contemplating in this speech.

What act and scene are you referring to?

Describe Fortinbras based on what Horatio says.

Do you mean in Act 1? Based upon Horatio's description, young Fortinbras is bold, inexperienced, and willing to do anything to regain his father's lost lands.

Why is a clock mentioned in Hamlet. There weren’t any clock’s in Hanlet’s time.

Yes I've heard this question before. This is called an anachronism. It is an inconsistency in some chronological arrangement. In this case, there were clocks in Shakespeare’s time but not in Hamlet's. Shakespeare wrote it in because he thought it...

Study Guide for Hamlet

Hamlet study guide contains a biography of William Shakespeare, literature essays, a complete e-text, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Hamlet
• Hamlet Summary
• Hamlet Video
• Character List

Essays for Hamlet

Hamlet essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Hamlet by William Shakespeare.

• Through Rose Colored Glasses: How the Victorian Age Shifted the Focus of Hamlet
• Q to F7: Mate; Hamlet's Emotions, Actions, and Importance in the Nunnery Scene
• Before the Storm
• Haunted: Hamlet's Relationship With His Dead Father
• Heliocentric Hamlet: The Astronomy of Hamlet

Lesson Plan for Hamlet

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Hamlet
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Hamlet Bibliography

E-Text of Hamlet

The Hamlet e-text contains the full text of the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare.

• List of Characters

Wikipedia Entries for Hamlet

• Introduction

The examiner is looking for you to show that you understand the character if Hamlet and his powerful role in the play. The question also wants you to consider the theme of madness and whether or not Hamlet is mad.

1 – Introduction

What are you going to do? You are going to argue whether you believe Hamlet to be mad or not.

2 – Madness as a theme

Discuss the theme of madness – it effects several characters in the play and Hamlet does show some mad traits.

3 - Is Hamlet mad?

Select a few examples which you believe show Hamlet to be mad or not to be mad.

Consider to what extent these examples show madness. E.g. Is he simply reacting to a situation?

4 – Is Hamlet playing his part?

Select a few examples which suggest Hamlet is simply playing a part in an attempt to seek revenge.

Why does Hamlet act in this way?

What is his motive?

Does it suggest he is mad?

5 – Conclusion

Come to a firm conclusion do you or do you not think Hamlet is mad?

To what extent do you or do you not believe he is mad ?

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Hamlet - Essay Questions and Preparation for A level

Subject: English

Age range: 16+

Resource type: Worksheet/Activity

Last updated

5 February 2018

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As and a level english literature - h072, h472.

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2022 - june series.

• Question paper - Drama and poetry pre-1900 H472/01 - PDF 2MB
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• Examiners' report - Literature post-1900 H472/03 - PDF 389KB
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2021 - November series

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2020 - November series

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2019 - June series

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• Literature post-1900: guide to task setting This guide outlines best practice for task setting to support teaching of A Level component 03: Literature post-1900. PDF 624KB
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2018 - june series.

• Shakespeare and poetry pre-1900 H072/01 - PDF 12MB
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• Shakespeare and poetry pre-1900 H072/01 - Exemplar candidate work with commentary PDF 13MB

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Resilience of Protagonists in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Sophocles’ Oedipus Plays Essay

Introduction.

The history of world literature is full of exciting examples of protagonists’ fates in literary works. Considering various literature masterpieces of different historical periods, it is possible to construct parallels between characters and draw vital conclusions. By comparing the main heroes’ characteristics and actions, the reader receives essential knowledge about the nature of humans and their actions in the face of fate. In this contrast essay, the protagonists of such literary works as Hamlet (1600) and Oedipus Rex (429 BC), written in entirely different epochs but with much in common, will be considered. The authors, William Shakespeare and Sophocles, through external circumstances and the tragedy of the fate of the protagonists, demonstrate the characteristics of their characters. Comparing the actions of Hamlet and Oedipus and examining their responses to sudden shocks in detail, the protagonist of Oedipus Rex was much more resilient to the truth than Hamlet.

Background and Plot of two Plays

In order to consider in detail the subject of the resilience of two protagonists, Hamlet and Oedipus, it is necessary to briefly describe the main events taking place in both plays. William Shakespeare, who wrote Hamlet , and Sophocles, author of Oedipus Rex , laid important nuances in their literary works, which reveal the protagonists’ characters from different angles. The events of Hamlet’s play are filled with tragedy, which reflects the features of Hamlet’s behavior. In the beginning, the protagonist’s father, who was killed by his brother, Hamlet’s Uncle, appears to his son as a ghost and tells his child what happened. Further events of the play surround the desire for vengeance for his father, and the character and actions of Hamlet are manifested. The end of this literary work is characterized by the death of Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle, and the protagonist himself.

Oedipus Rex

The events of the literary work Oedipus Rex revolve around the protagonist and his search for the causes of the disease that has overtaken people in his city. Oedipus strives to understand what caused the plague and what means it can be cured. Therefore, he turns to various sources of information to find out the truth. However, during his research, he discovers that this punishment was imposed on his people for the sin he committed by killing Laius, the previous King. It is important to emphasize that although Hamlet accepts his father’s truth at once, he experiences considerable suffering and uncertainty. On the opposite, Oedipus rejects the truth and resolutely seeks to prove the opposite in the search for the causes of the plague.

Difference in Resilience of the Main Heroes

When considering the resilience of Hamlet, it is essential to start at the beginning of the play by observing the conversation between the protagonist and his father, King Hamlet. It is important to emphasize that Hamlet’s doubts about his father’s words are not last. He soon realizes that his father is telling the truth. However, the specific resilience of the protagonist is not due to his desire to deny the words of King Hamlet but to his lack of determination to take further revenge actions. Hamlet experiences fear and moral complexities regarding what he needs to do. It is vital to stress that the main difference between the actions of the two protagonists is that this difference will be highlighted profoundly in the next paragraph.

In comparison to Hamlet, Oedipus was the ruler and was responsible for what was happening in his city. Consequently, he had the power to obtain information from various sources and methods. For this reason, it is not surprising that when Oedipus found out that he was the cause of the plague that crippled his people, he began to deny it and seek the truth. It is important to stress that, unlike Hamlet, he acted decisively in his desire to know what happened. However, Oedipus was determined to reject and disbelieve new information that again proved his culpability for the diseases. Sources such as the prophecy by the prophet Tiresias and information from the oracle at Delphi failed to convince the ruler. However, during Oedipus’s investigation, he finally believed in the truth. Therefore, it should be stated that Oedipus’s unprecedented level of resilience was higher than Hamlet’s. The various sources of information listed above did not convince the protagonist of the literary work Oedipus Rex and caused the tragic fate of Oedipus.

In conclusion, it is essential to emphasize the time difference between the two literary works. Notably, it is about two thousand years between them. However, it is noteworthy that authors pay considerable attention to the same questions of human nature and character in different epochs. The topic of human perception and response to various shocks and tragedies of fate is specific to Hamlet and Oedipus Rex . However, an attentive reader will notice a difference in the protagonists’ behavior and the level of resilience relative to the tragic truth. Taking into account the abovementioned facts regarding the character and actions of the two literary works, as well as considering the plot of each, it was found that Oedipus has a significantly higher resilience than Hamlet.

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IvyPanda. (2024, May 23). Resilience of Protagonists in Shakespeare's Hamlet and Sophocles' Oedipus Plays. https://ivypanda.com/essays/resilience-of-protagonists-in-shakespeares-hamlet-and-sophocles-oedipus-plays/

"Resilience of Protagonists in Shakespeare's Hamlet and Sophocles' Oedipus Plays." IvyPanda , 23 May 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/resilience-of-protagonists-in-shakespeares-hamlet-and-sophocles-oedipus-plays/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'Resilience of Protagonists in Shakespeare's Hamlet and Sophocles' Oedipus Plays'. 23 May.

IvyPanda . 2024. "Resilience of Protagonists in Shakespeare's Hamlet and Sophocles' Oedipus Plays." May 23, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/resilience-of-protagonists-in-shakespeares-hamlet-and-sophocles-oedipus-plays/.

1. IvyPanda . "Resilience of Protagonists in Shakespeare's Hamlet and Sophocles' Oedipus Plays." May 23, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/resilience-of-protagonists-in-shakespeares-hamlet-and-sophocles-oedipus-plays/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Resilience of Protagonists in Shakespeare's Hamlet and Sophocles' Oedipus Plays." May 23, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/resilience-of-protagonists-in-shakespeares-hamlet-and-sophocles-oedipus-plays/.

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Michael Emerson Still Reigns as TV’s King of Creepy

The actor has played unsettling men on shows like “Lost” and “Fallout.” In the new season of “Evil,” he might be raising the Antichrist.

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By Esther Zuckerman

On one wall of the actor Michael Emerson’s Manhattan apartment hangs a large self portrait he drew about 40 years ago. In the intentionally distorted image, Emerson peers out menacingly from behind his circular glasses. His wife, the actor Carrie Preston, thinks it serves as a fitting summation of his career.

“You know, Carrie brought this up recently saying, ‘There’s the template for so much of what you have done as an actor,’” he said. “For me it was just a laugh. It’s still the same mix of having fun and yet being a little, what’s the word, terrifying.”

It’s true: If you want someone to be creepy on television, you call Michael Emerson. The 69-year-old actor had his breakout role in 2000 playing a serial killer in “The Practice,” a performance so memorably distressing it won him a guest actor Emmy. He went on to unsettle viewers for years as the unpredictable Ben Linus in “Lost,” and as the computer wizard Harold Finch on “Person of Interest.” This year he showed up for one episode of the Prime Video series “Fallout,” from the “Person of Interest” creator Jonathan Nolan, as a quietly menacing scientist. They aren’t all bad guys, but you’re never quite sure.

Emerson is currently inhabiting his most ghoulish role yet, in the aptly named Paramount+ show “Evil,” returning for its fourth and final season on May 23. Emerson plays Leland Townsend, a demonic emissary who constantly torments the heroes, a group of investigators played by Mike Colter, Katja Herbers and Aasif Mandvi. This trio works for the Roman Catholic Church to determine whether various strange goings-on are the result of satanic forces or more mundane phenomena. Leland’s main goal is to promote the forces of darkness by any means possible.

In Emerson’s hands, Leland is a captivating, often frightening agent of chaos who is surprisingly goofy for someone who is OK with child murder. In the new season, he is raising his biological son — he nefariously arranged the baby’s conception earlier in the series — and believes the child is the Antichrist.

“I don’t know anyone that does unsettling better than Michael Emerson,” Michelle King, who created “Evil” with her husband, Robert, said in a video interview.

It’s a skill he can evidently turn on. On a sunny afternoon in April, he invited a reporter into his home and was happy to discuss his décor, which includes a series of vintage-style “Lost” posters and Preston’s collection of “energy rocks.” A small, elderly dog named Chumley was curled up on the couch after a bit of early suspicion regarding the intruder.

“I don’t think I’ve ever worked with an actor who was more different than the character they were playing than Leland and Michael,” King said. “It’s hard to imagine where he’s pulling that from, because he is so very different from that in life.”

Christine Lahti, one of Emerson’s “Evil” co-stars, concurred. “He’s the opposite of Leland,” she said, describing him as “gentlemanly, kind, sensitive.”

Emerson said he has been drawn to “grotesquerie” since he first started acting, in school plays in Iowa where he grew up. “I was always the bespectacled little guy with the shrill voice who would play the old man or the clown or the wizard,” he said. He would do drawings of “ghoulish figures that have no eyeballs.”

There’s still a taste of the macabre in his otherwise very pleasant penthouse: There’s a large drawing, by Emerson, of a cat skull he found under a house he was working on in St. Augustine, Fla. Florida was one of the detours Emerson took during his lengthy journey to a thriving acting career.

“When young actors ask me ‘What advice do you have?’ I say, ‘Can you answer this question: Could I wait 20 or 30 years to be a success as an actor?’” he said. “Because that’s what it took me.”

He moved to New York to act after college but found it hard to break into the business, and eventually pivoted to magazine illustration after taking weekend classes at Parsons while doing retail jobs. His first marriage, which ended in divorce, brought him to Jacksonville, Fla., where he did regional theater. A graduate acting program took him to the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, which is where he met Preston when she came to town to play Ophelia in a production of “Hamlet.” Emerson was Guildenstern.

Preston now stars in the CBS procedural “Elsbeth,” also created by the Kings. It’s a family business, although the cheery sleuth Elsbeth could not be more different from the disconcerting Leland. (Emerson marvels at Preston’s work on “Elsbeth”: “Where does she come up with that? It’s just so great.”)

Emerson credits his Shakespearean training — twice he played Iago, the chatty schemer of “Othello” — for his ability to keep viewers on edge. “Iago forces the audience to collaborate with him and makes them complicit in his mischief,” he said.

When Emerson reads a script for “Evil,” he starts to imagine how unpredictable he can be. “Is the line maybe secretly funnier than anyone imagined? Let’s try that,” he said. “Or playing a counter strategy: Being gleeful about a thing that the audience expects you to be glum about. Or be upset about something that no one else in the world would be upset about.”

Herbers, who plays the forensic psychologist Kristen Bouchard on “Evil,” said acting opposite Emerson is like a game of “high-level chess.” He delivers a line about, say, murdering her character’s children as if he were offering “a bouquet of flowers.”

“We meet in the scene, and we surprise each other, and I think we excite each other,” she said.

Emerson said the “Evil” crew is thrilled when there is a Leland scene to shoot. (Herbers confirmed this.) “They rather delight in Leland,” Emerson said. “They just know it’s going to be scenes that are just dangerous and have a little crackle and also sly humor and many comical upsets or frustrations.”

Over the course of the four seasons, Leland has confessed his troubles to a devil therapist, posed as a video game character to threaten Kristen’s daughters and danced in a wheat field in a particularly hilarious dream sequence. He’s been drenched in blood and pelted with Antichrist vomit. In one scene, Leland sings the song “Kids” from “Bye Bye Birdie.” Emerson sometimes feels as if the Kings are testing him: “Can we make it so dopey that Emerson won’t do it? But I’ve defeated them.”

Michelle King said Emerson is “willing to do anything, no matter how crazy it is.”

“That’s been completely freeing,” she added. “He understands how to make the rhythms odd, and that makes the character odd.”

So would Emerson want to play someone kindhearted for a change? Not necessarily. He doesn’t have a bucket list of roles, but has considered one challenge he’d like to tackle.

“I play such talkers that I’ve often thought I’ll be interested someday if somebody offers me a role that is kind of silent, or nonverbal, or mute somehow,” he said.

His voice grew quieter as he finished that sentence. It was, yes, somewhat unsettling.

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