Hamlet by William Shakespeare: Detailed summary with crtitical analysis

 

Act 1

 
"Who's there?" asks the sentinel Barnardo as the scene 1 begins. There is a practical reason for these opening words, spoken in darkness just after the stroke of midnight. Barnardo is there to relieve another sentinel, Francisco, and they witnessed something strange and unnatural scene. But symbolically, this question creates a fitting opening for Shakespeare's great tragedy.

 
Causes for nervousness about who is there soon become apparent. To begin with, a ghost is haunting Elsinore, the royal seat of Denmark. This "dreaded sight" has been twice witnessed by Barnardo and his partner, Marcellus, who arrives accompanied by the skeptical Horatio. Even as Barnardo, Marcellus, and Horatio discuss the ghost, it appears and "spreads his arms." Horatio urges this apparition to stay and speak, but it goes away. Horatio is forced to admit its likeness to the recently demised King Hamlet.

Another cause for anxiety is the condition of the nation. Denmark's great king, Old Hamlet, has recently died, and the kingdom is now vulnerable to an aggressive young Norwegian prince, Fortinbras. This Fortinbras has personal reasons for attacking the Danes. Old Hamlet conquered his father, Old Fortinbras, and seized lands that Fortinbras now wants back.

 
As the men talk, the ghost appears a second time. Determined to make it speak, but in vain. Horatio, young Hamlet's only close friend in the play, resolves to tell Hamlet what he and Marcellus have witnessed. By starting in medias res, the play indicates the unsettled state of Denmark and prepares for arguably the most important encounter in the play that between Hamlet and his father's ghost.

Barnardo's opening question resonates with the play's broader meanings. For 400 years, audiences, readers, critics, actors, and directors have been asking, "Who's there?" when trying to identify the protagonist. Who is Hamlet, really? Son, prince, student at Wittenberg, avenger, playwright, Renaissance Everyman, soldier? His nature remains the greatest enigma in the play.

Scene 2 begins with a courtly, crowded flourish, creating a memorable contrast with the first scene. The interior setting is as bright and festive as the opening scene was dark and pensive. Claudius, Hamlet's uncle, as well as his new stepfather turned to be the new king, declares both his sorrow at the death of his brother, King Hamlet, and his joy at his own marriage to the late king's widow, Queen Gertrude. Claudius means to convince Hamlet and the court that all is well, that Denmark is not "disjoint and out of frame," although young Fortinbras thinks so. Claudius sends forth the nobles Cornelius and Voltemand as ambassadors of peace to the current king of Norway, the uncle of Fortinbras.

Claudius then summons Laertes, the son of his minister Polonius. Laertes, who is a student in France, asks the king's permission to return to school now that Claudius' coronation is past. Laertes has the blessing of his father, and the king permits him to resume his studies.

 
The king and queen now turn to Hamlet. His appearance and demeanor show his discontent, and they admonish him for his funereal looks. He replies to the royal couple's questions with terse, bitter pun.

 
Claudius argues that Hamlet's ongoing grief is unmanly and unnatural. In an ominous development, Claudius makes it clear that he does not wish Hamlet to return to school in Wittenberg.  Rather, he wants Hamlet to remain at Elsinore as "our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son." Claudius seems suspicious of his nephew.

The king and queen exit with their assistants, leaving Hamlet alone onstage. He speaks his first great soliloquy-"O that this too, too sullied flesh would melt”. Hamlet expresses his deep disappointment with his mother for her hasty marriage to Claudius and expresses his resentment "frailty, thy name is woman!" There is at least a hint of sexual disgust in his attack. Finally, he conveys a sense of his difficult, almost claustrophobic circumstances: "But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue." Hamlet ends his speech as Horatio, Marcellus, and Barnardo enter. They tell him about seeing his father's ghost. Hamlet learns that the ghost appeared to them armed in full battle gear, and he immediately makes plans to see for himself. Hamlet will speak to this ghost "though hell itself should gape/ And bid me hold my peace." The tone here is one of insistence, but readers may be troubled by the extremity of Hamlet's words.

Scene 3 serves as an interlude of sorts. It is the kind of domestic scene. Laertes prepares for his departure, and his sister, Ophelia, is introduced. In response to her brother's all too fatherly warnings about Hamlet's interest in her, she reveals wit and a spirit that elsewhere is silenced. Their father, Polonius, enters and offers no shortage of advice to his son. Polonius is often portrayed as an assertive person, but here Shakespeare gives him a sensible wisdom and one of the play's most famous lines: "This above all: to thine own self be true." But when Laertes departs and Polonius turns to his daughter, he becomes less sympathetic, criticizing Ophelia for seeing Hamlet and expecting the worst in the prince.

 
In scene 4, Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus stand before the castle, watching for the ghost. As they wait, Hamlet complains to Horatio about the new king. Despite the proper speeches Claudius made earlier, his nights are apparently filled with drinking, loud music, dancing, and merriment. Suddenly everything changes: The ghost enters. "Angels and ministers of grace, defend u Hamlet cries out. Immediately he wonders about its nature: Is the ghost the benign spirit of his father or a "goblin damned"? When Hamlet speaks of its questionable shape," he means both that he means to ask it questions and that he finds it suspicious. The ghost beckons for Hamlet to come forward. Horatio fears for Hamlet's safety and tries to hold his friend back, but Hamlet, not much valuing his life, will not be denied this meeting. As the pair exit, Marcellus says darkly, "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark." This encounter between Hamlet and the ghost of his father is the early highlight of this play.

 

In the next scene (scene 5), the ghost speaks. The ghost reveals that he, Hamlet's father, was murdered, and he commands Hamlet to seek revenge-against the king. His brother Claudius, the ghost says, poured poison in his ear as he slept in his garden. The spirit's pronouncement has validated Hamlet's general suspicions: "O my prophetic soul!" Significantly, the ghost prohibits Hamlet from taking revenge on his mother, who is to be left "to heaven" and her own remorse. If she is guilty, the extent of her guilt seems qualitatively different from that of Claudius.

Certainly Hamlet takes the ghost's charge seriously,  and promises to seek revenge "with wings as swift " . Marcellus and Horatio catch up to Hamlet and ask him, "What news?"  But he does not tell them that the spirit commanded him to avenge his father's death upon his uncle, the murderer.  It is as if Hamlet is already trying out the "antic disposition" (feigned madness) that he describes to Horatio.

 

Act II

Scene 1 opens with Polonius, who now seems more sinister: He is instructing Reynaldo to spy on Laertes in Paris. Polonius thus introduces the recurring activity of surveillance in Hamlet. His spying will eventually lead to his death.

The most important development in this scene involves Ophelia, who soon enters "affrighted." The cause of her fright was Hamlet, who, she says, burst into her private room, seized her by the wrist, studied her face intently, and three times "raised a sigh so piteous and profound / As it did seem to shatter all his bulk/And end his being." Ophelia concludes with an intense image of Hamlet dragging himself away from her.

In any case, Ophelia immediately becomes a piece of evidence in her father's efforts to explain Hamlet's behavior to a concerned king and queen.

 

The next scene (scene 2) comprises a long sequence of events. It begins with Claudius and Gertrude welcoming Hamlet's school friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to Elsinore. The king and queen are concerned about Hamlet's behavior, and Gertrude bids the young pair to visit her "too much changed son." They immediately oblige.

 
The ambassador Voltemand next provides an update on his diplomatic mission to Norway: Fortinbras has yielded to the command of his uncle, the king of Norway, to stop preparing for war with Denmark. Yet Fortinbras craves permission to march through Denmark to battle a Polish army.

The king and queen depart with their retinue, leaving Polonius alone with the prince. Hamlet feigns madness, all at the older man's expense. He calls Polonius a "fishmonger," mockingly alludes to his daughter, and insults.  Polonius suspects something is going on beneath the apparent nonsense: "Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't." As he exit Rosencrantz and Guildenstern enter and reunite with their friend. The three young men exchange schoolboy jokes.

 
Now Hamlet wanted to know the reason of their arrival. His friends are caught off guards , and rather awkwardly they admit that they are in the service of the king and queen. The prince has lost all of his mirth. In a gorgeous piece of Renaissance talk, Hamlet broods on the nature of this world and marvels, "What a piece of work is a man," thus giving his companions a plausible explanation for his melancholy. The friends mercifully change the subject by announcing to Hamlet that "tragedians of the city" have arrived at Elsinore. The young men discuss theater in general, until Polonius re-enters the scene, and Hamlet resumes his mockery.

The players enter and are greeted. Hamlet asks them to recite a specific speech about Priam's slaughter (from Virgil's Aeneid) that he says he is struggling to remember.




Act III

 
Scene 1 begins with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern reporting their observations of Hamlet to the king and queen as Polonius and Ophelia stand by; Claudius and Gertrude are pleased to hear of Hamlet's delight in the players. They further plot to spy on Hamlet, and Ophelia.

Polonius makes a plan that his daughter in the court lobby to intercept the prince. But he moves forward without noticing her. Does he notice her, perhaps even direct his next speech, the most famous in all of dramatic literature, to her? The decision belongs to a director and to the reader's personal vision. "To be, or not to be, that is the question," Hamlet says. Although the specifics are difficult to determine, Hamlet seems to be brooding on either suicide, which would mean he has reverted to his depressed state at the play's outset, or on the moral consequences of taking revenge on Claudius. Whatever his action killing himself or killing the king, what will happen to him in the afterlife? Pondering this, he concludes that "Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,".

 
He now acknowledges Ophelia, and the two have an awkward, post-breakup talk. Ophelia, initiating the confrontation, wishes to return letters and other "remembrances" from Hamlet, given during their more amorous days. Suddenly Hamlet turns on Ophelia, questioning her chastity ("honesty") and her fairness. Hamlet may be playing the madcap, first saying he once loved Ophelia, then immediately denying it. Ophelia, wounded but noble, replies simply, "I was the more deceived." Hamlet, seems as repulsed with his own, male "old stock," or sinful state, as with Ophelia, who should "Go thy ways to a nunnery."

 

Hamlet's outburst reaches its height here; he curses Ophelia along with extreme verbal abuse. Abandoned onstage, she laments, "O what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!" The two noble spies now reveal themselves, and the king has seen enough: He shall dispatch Hamlet to England, for his stepson may threaten "some danger." But the king is persuaded to let Polonius spy on Hamlet once more, in the queen's chamber, before carrying out this plan.

 

In scene 2, Hamlet enters with the players and shows himself to be quite knowledgeable about actors' habits. Hamlet gives a series of advices regarding the histrionic talents.

 

Hamlet takes Horatio into his confidence, asking him to watch Claudius's reaction to the play, which "comes near the circumstance" of King Hamlet's death. If Claudius's guilt does not reveal itself, Hamlet determines they have seen a "damned ghost and not his father's spirit.

 
The royal court enters with a flourish. As final preparations are made. The players perform a dumb show, followed by the play proper, in which the Player Queen makes Gertrude decidedly uncomfortable. "The lady doth protest too much, methinks," she tersely tells her son. The king, too, seems uncomfortable. Hamlet tells him that the play is (aptly) titled ‘The Mousetrap’. The staging of the king's poisoning indeed sets off Claudius, who rises abruptly and departs, bringing the play to a sudden halt. As the lords and ladies of the court scramble off, Hamlet confirms Claudius's guilt with Horatio and declares his trust in the ghost's message (and, presumably, his acceptance of the ghost's command to revenge as well).

 
Hamlet's theatrical triumph is short-lived, however. Immediately Rosencrantz and Guildenstern arrive to summon Hamlet to his displeased mother. The pair seem genuinely confused by Hamlet's unpredictable, manic behavior; they find his speech "unframed". Hamlet, though, refuses to back down.

 

Hamlet: "You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery.

 

He next encounters Polonius, who repeats the queen's demand to see her son. As Hamlet leaves, he sounds (perhaps more convincingly) like a true avenger, speaking of drinking hot blood and doing bitter business. As he prepares to confront his mother, he fears the unnatural deed of matricide, which the ghost has expressly prohibited. He does not wish to resemble Nero, the debauched (sinful) Roman emperor with a penchant for killing family members. Always obsessed with the spoken word, Hamlet vows instead to "speak daggers to her" but leave the queen physically unharmed.

 
In scene 3 a distempered Claudius resolves to send his mad stepson to England; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern will accompany him there. Polonius, still spying, announces his plan to stand behind the arras in Gertrude's chamber; apparently Claudius does not trust Gertrude to convey an impartial account of her meeting with Hamlet. The conclusion to this scene is a powerful piece of stagecraft Alone, Claudius sets to his prayers, and he freely admits his guilt and unwillingness to relinquish his ill-gotten crown, ambition, and queen. Suddenly Hamlet enters, often behind the kneeling king and, in some performances, with sword raised to achieve his revenge. Again the prince delays, this time saying that the deed now would be no revenge but would basically send the praying king to heaven "fit and seasoned for his passage."

 
His motivation here sounds both ambiguous and radically more sinister in spiritual terms, and Hamlet's desire to be no mere avenger but rather a theologian of damnation has troubled critics of every century. Hamlet's showdown with Gertrude in scene 4 is one of the most emotionally explosive scenes in the play. Immediately mother and son accuse each other of offending the dead king's memory. Hamlet forces Gertrude to sit; her fear that he will murder her suggests his frenzy. At this, Polonius cries out from his place of concealment, and Hamlet, thinking it is the king, thrusts his dagger through the arras. The queen, shocked and outraged, she has disgraced herself, Hamlet argues, and he cannot believe she would mar the memory of his father by marrying Claudius.
"Have you eyes?" he demands of her, and she eventually begins to feel shame "Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul." The son expresses his vehemence upon his mother's sexual relationship with Claudius, which repulses him and which has spurred many a Freudian critic and Earnest Jones  to believe Hamlet suffers from an Oedipal complex.

His obsession is degrading, and perhaps for this reason the ghost suddenly reappears although, significantly, only Hamlet can see it. Gertrude sees nothing, so is he indeed mad? The ghost criticizes Hamlet's "almost blunted purpose," and ultimately his appearance does defuse the son's accusations. He exits dragging the body of Polonius. Hamlet authentically regrets the older man's death.

 

Act IV

In scene 1, Gertrude tells Claudius that Hamlet, in his madness, has killed Polonius in his hiding place. Claudius sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to bring Polonius's body to the chapel. In the equally brief scene 2, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern ask Hamlet for the body and receive taunts and mockery reply. By scene 3, the court has finally cornered Hamlet. Once Hamlet is apprehended and carried offstage en route to England, Claudius confides to the audience that he has devised in England the "present death of Hamlet." He is sending a request to the English king via Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to have Hamlet killed.

Scene 5 presents the consequences of Polonius's death. Ophelia is visibly unsettled by the news, singing sad songs ("He is dead and gone"), and, in her oncoming madness.  Claudius is concerned with the political unrest arising from Polonius's death, and soon Laertes, led by a "riotous head" declaring him king, bursts into the court to demand an explanation. He sounds like someone prepared to avenge a dead father: "To hell allegiance, vows to the blackest devil,/ Conscience and grace to the profoundest pit! I dare damnation." The king's strategy is to redirect the young man's rage by involving him in a conspiracy against Hamlet.

 

In scene 6, Horatio learns the surprising news that Hamlet has returned. In scene 7, Claudius learns that Hamlet has returned to Denmark. Claudius and Laertes plan Hamlet's death: A fencing match between the young men shall be arranged, but Laertes's foil (fencing sword) will be deadly sharp; furthermore, Laertes will dip his blade in poison he has acquired. Where as Hamlet is given a blunt sword. Gertrude returns with further bad news-the drowning of Ophelia, which she describes in a beautifully haunting passage.

 

Act V

 
The final act of Hamlet begins (scene 1) with the sort of low, clownish comedy, known as the grave digger's scene .  The audience quickly discovers that this pair is preparing the grave for Ophelia's funeral. Reunited, Hamlet and Horatio happen upon them and see one gravedigger throwing skulls from a grave which spurs Hamlet's meditation on the inevitability and universality of death Hamlet reveals himself.

Ophelia's funeral procession goes on , and Hamlet, hidden again, eventually realizes she has died. Gertrude touchingly says she had hoped the dead girl would have been Hamlet's wife. Overcome with grief, Laertes jumps into her grave. This theatrical show offends Hamlet, who boldly enters and grapples with Laertes. He declares his love for Ophelia to have been much greater than Laertes's brotherly love. The two men are separated, and the king urges Laertes to look forward to the revenge they have planned.

Scene 2, the play's final scene, begins on a reflective note, quite opposed to its violent, tragic ending. Hamlet recounts Claudius's treachery in sending him to England with Hamlet's death warrant in the hands of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.  Osric enters to call Hamlet to his match with Laertes. Hamlet is finally prepared to accept fate and encounter his enemies-"The readiness is all."

 

The court enters with a flourish, and Hamlet offers Laertes an apology. Laertes accepts it but declares that his honor demands combat. The pair begin fighting. Gertrude comments that Hamlet is "fat and scant of breath," but he performs well enough; he gets two hits on his more vigorous opponent. Gertrude drinks to her son from the poisoned chalice. Claudius recognizes her lethal act immediately. Laertes strikes Hamlet with his poisoned blade, and in a subsequent scuffle, the two men exchange blades. Then Hamlet strikes Laertes. Both men are mortally wounded, announces Laertes, who feels remorse for his treachery even as he accomplishes it. Gertrude, too, falls and cries out that she has been poisoned. The news of his imminent death seems to liberate Hamlet further, finally, his revenge against the king is at hand, and in effect he achieves it twice: He wounds Claudius with the blade and forces him to drink his own deadly "poision" too.

 

Almost immediately Hamlet achieves a nobility in his dying. Laertes begs forgiveness from the "noble Hamlet, and the prince delivers a memorably understated farewell: "The rest is silence." Horatio gives Hamlet a final goodbye "Good night, sweet Prince."