Hamlet Essay

Death by your own plan, that is the story of Hamlet. The unwavering questioning of motives and action build to create a sense of uncertainty. Thinking to know what comes next, but having no idea how to act. Hamlet by William Shakespeare is a play about uncertainty. The juxtaposition of knowing what is wanted and being caught in complete stillness is a theme for the character Hamlet. He knows what he wants but questions himself so much that he begins to question his own motives. "To be or not to be," something so cliche it lost its meaning; the meaning of the expectation you build inside and the reality of what you see. Hamlet is a character that builds the theme of the whole play. He embodies the course the play takes, from frustration to questioning to action of no action back to frustration and again. It is a cycle that repeats until it comes to an end in the final scene when "to be or not to be" becomes only one option; to be. As in the Performative Utterance, a cycle was made, but this one was made from no connection of the three forces. Hamlet could not connect the ability of thought with the ability of language with the ability of achievement contributing to his continual questioning. The theme of Hamlet is the difference between who you want to be and who you are; the ambiguous past to present to future.

"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." Who I want vs who I am. Should I be ignorant of the unjust around me or should I act against all that is unjust. These are the thoughts of Hamlet as he finds himself alone after so long of extending his revenge. Throughout his soliloquy, Hamlet reveals is distrust with himself and his urge to be something he is not. He beats himself up for being the kid that everyone pitied instead of the man everyone would fear. This reveals to the audience his uncertain nature and journey of self discovery. As a reader, the various emotions of Hamlet are shown in his diverse character. Sadness, anger, passion, commitment, self-loathing. His tone is characterized by change. First, passive. Second, aggravated. Third, outraged. Fourth, ashamed. Fifth, wrathful. Sixth, confident. Seventh, amused. Eighth, sorrowful. Ninth, grateful. Hamlet evolves throughout the story as an individual with no path to an individual with a purpose. Hamlet is the central tone of the play, it is unique in that it changes.

The definition of theme is the main idea or an underlying meaning of literary work. Hamlet embodies the theme of Hamlet through his constant uncertainty of action until the end. He is the change between who he wants to be and who he is. The definition of tone is an attitude the writer takes toward a subject. Hamlet embodies the tone of Hamlet through his constant changing. He is shaped from a boy to a man throughout the play and the audience can see the evolution from innocence to confidence. "To be or not to be," the uncertain action of change.

Hamlet act 5

Act 5

Scene 1

- Shakespeare introduces sacrifice in nonchalant way 

- clown done this so much that he is detached to burying people

- hamlet 30 years old

- "alas poor yorick! I knew him horatio: a fellow of infinite jest , of most excellent fancy"

- grandest among us be humble 

- hamlet lived Ophelia

- thinks laertes thinks he didn't and now he is talking out loud

- "the dog will have his day"

Scene 2 

- found guild and rose. Fear opened commission. Found scheme that guild and rose were going to him

- hamlet forging new commission

- Kill guild and rose

- hamlet says that their death is just karma since they would do the same thing to him

- hamlet feels bad for laertes because both lost father and sympathisizss with him

- hamlets assassin is ostric who is comedic so why out him as hamlets death maker?

- talks about hat and what to do with it. Gives himself away to hamlet pretty much

- hamlet mimicking ostric and makes horatio comment about it

- hamlet agrees to fencing match

- horatio is worried about hamlet and wants to tell the others that hamlet is sick but hamlet has short speech which acknowledges the fact that he knows he is going to die? And tells horatio to just let it be

- hamlet tells laertes he is victim to his own madness and keeps up the charade if being mad

- queen drinks poisoned wine

- hamlet gets scratched with postponed sword and has 30 min to live 

- hamlet takes laertes sword and fights laertes killing him

- queen falls and yells that she knows it was the poisoned cup that got her

- hamlet plunges sword in king and shoves poisoned wine down throat and kills king

- hamlet wants his story to be told and stops horatio from killing himself with hamlet. He doesn't want to be known as a murderer

- fortinbras becomes king and horatio gives speech in honor of hamlet and fallen men. Doesn't tell story with anyone as a hero but as in hamlets first soliloquy

- end with cannons that irritated Hamlet

- hamlet last words "so tell him, with the occurents more and less which have solicited the rest is silence"

Hamlet Act 4

Act 4

Scene 1

- what's wrong?

- Gertrude says that hamlet is nuts and Claudius plans to send hamlet away and going to excuse his wrong doing

- scared on hamlet spilling the beans about the murder 

Scene 2 

- hamlet actin. Like a round for the first time with guild and rose

Scene 3

- Claudius needs this sending away to seem normal and appropriate so people don't question him

-wordy, imperial, and bringing many characteristics into one

- Hamlet tells Claudius he is like everyone else

- goif to have hamlet killed in England 

- hamlet changed and is now a man. Confident 

Scene 4

- 5th soliloquy 

- going to fight over something worthless

- soldiers show courage, honor, obedience 

- no outward cause it's about inward commitment for hamlet 

- compare to captain and how he can't do what he does

- circumstances make him no able to  do what he wants?

- hawt talks about how man has brain to use to carry out action and if we don't then we are just another animal all the same

- chiding himself for over thinking 

- blaming himself and making excuses for procrastinating 

- has army at his command because he is a prince 

- making himself miserable

- double sided blade: piece of all of us how we have mental capabilities for reflection and learning but at the same time there is a benefit to not thinking so much and just taking action like in battle

- resolve into tapping into inner soldier and not think about what he is doing and just be a soldier with no emotion and just do action

Scene 5

- hamlet says Ophelia is crazy

- talking about dead father, love, rejection has made someone mad, 

- Claudius is starting to see the more issues and weeds of his problem

- Ophelia saying how is polonuis death is just excised she will call lasrtes and he won't have it

- Claudius speech?

- laertes saying any part of me this is not angry is not the son to my father

- who shall stay you: who shall hold you back

- saying Ophelia has lost her mind. Ophelia loved hamlet and she lost him

- laertes is twice angry at hamlet 

- Claudius plan is falling apart and hamlet is not on way to England and rose and guil are and hamlet has own plan

Scene 6

- know you the hand: do you recognize the hand writing

- laertes will listen to Claudius as long as he doesn't tell her to kill anyone

- hamlet ship attacked by pirates so came home because he said he would do a good deed for them later

Scene 7

- king convinces laertes to be on his side

- stated that he didn't convict hamlet for Gertrude and that everyone loves hamlet 

- king reiterating his power 

- sociological test on laertes before tell him plan to kill hamlet. Laertes wants to be the one to do it so he is in on plan but king doesn't know his will power

- king tells laertes that hamlet envies him because this man lamond likes laertes over hamlet

- king is adamant about acting right away because he says the longer you wait the more likely you are to not accomplish it. Foreshadow hamlet? Show difference between king and hamlet

- exchanges in this convo reflect back on what play had been about so far 

- king has plan to have laertes kill hamlet while fencing and king will give hamlet a compliment so hamlet will be distracted and then laertes wil go in and kill him

- why does laertes just have poison lying around

- chalice of poisoned wine

- Ophelia drowned and she was a women who was driven mad by lost love

- laertes trying to fight back tears and calls them womanly: "I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze, but that this folly drowns it"

- Claudius tells queen that they need to follow laertes because of his state of mind and king is afraid of laertes and what he might do 

Hamlet: Just Your Average Teenager?

Hamlet is a play that reveals the mind behind the words. There is an array of characters who display different emotions of the human. Claudius is greed, Ophelia is innocence, Gertrude is sin, and Polonius is two-faced. All the different characteristics in the play combine into one human who has the needs and wants of anyone else, but the difference between them and others is their extreme nature. The character Hamlet is, yet again, the one who stands out. All on his own he embodies the characteristics of just one human who contemplates his wants, needs, and actions. He is a teenager who is put into a situation that most no one would encounter today. That is why he cannot be compared to teenagers of the modern society. Hamlet lived in a time of revenge where killing your uncle would restore the family name, but today that is something that would tarnish the family name. This leads to the idea of Hamlet as a young boy who cannot make up his mind, is depressed, or "mad". In context, Hamlet is all of those things and that is what people see him as and that is who he is. Who we are is bound by the way we make ourselves appear to others and how they perceive us. Hamlet let others influence who he was resulting in his obsession with revenge and giving himself something to distract the pain of loss. Therefore, Hamlet is a young boy who was everything people saw him as but with a twist: a young boy who was "mad", but the twist is that Hamlet's madness was his dying passion to do something for once.

Hamlet was just a teenager who experienced the death of essentially two parents. After his father died, his mother was "dead to him". He chose to shut everyone out along with his speech to hide his feelings. In reality, hiding his feelings wasn't going to make his situation better. When he stopped talking, he started listening; listening to his head, to his mother, to Claudius, and to Horatio. He forgot his own voice and let others tell him what to do. When his father appeared, Hamlet allowed someone who had already lived and made mistakes make his life and his duty. He lost sight of what he really wanted and by doing so he made himself insane. Constantly talking to yourself and contemplating killing someone is not the duty of a mourning teenager; it is that of someone who had nothing to live for. Hamlet's father was a man that was described as great and omnipotent, but as readers we only know of what the biased characters tell us. The indirect characterization of Hamlet's father is a man who wanted to finish what he started and if he couldn't he would destroy his son's life to do so. The unresolved family conflicts lead to Hamlet yet again being the target and the one that everyone leaves behind. Hamlet went mad with guilt, power, revenge, and the need to fulfill his lack-luster life. All the self analyzing and self doubt is the result of someone who is so determined to complete a goal that they become stiff and believe everything has to be perfect. Hamlet has nothing better to do than sit around and ponder his plan. That is not the life of a normal teenager who is just put in a bad situation. As Hamlet's journey progresses, readers see his transformation from a mortified teenager to that of an angry and dangerous soul.

In Deboer's paper, he comments on how Hamlet could not make real what was in his head and what was actual reality. He was so involved in his mind of his own reality of what he wanted to happen, that he couldn't compose himself. Hamlet uses his words and actions to deceive those around him as seen when he speaks to Ophelia before the play. He announces the play's summary and when Ophelia didn't react the way intended, Hamlet made inappropriate comments that didn't reflect the way he was. This further supports the concept that we are the people that others see us as. We soon start to believe what we get told and in Hamlet's case, he was told he was crazy and insane and that everyone was watching him; he then became those things. He was paranoid and always watching over his shoulder which contributed to his change in manners. Hamlet's passion for his plan developed into something that he couldn't control, himself. As the play progresses, Hamlet is becoming the person that he is trying to kill; a murderer who is killing for his own reasons and benefits. The habit of fulfillment is a path that others rain on us and it is up to those who are victimized to stop it.

To that fallen cake

            

This is the story of a cake. It was a beautiful Heath bar that would have made your eyes water and mouth cry. 'Twas the light in a dark alley, the hope in hopeless, and the smile on a dog's face, but all is forgotten when that dreaded foot hit the stair. The cake has fallen and with it the many hopes and dreams of some pretty lucky 5th period AP Lit students! My apologizes and I take full responsibility for the disaster of this fine cake day! Hope the cookies weren't too bad:) and again my apologies to miss Kestler for destroying her delicacy of cake art that is famous along the central santa maria/orcutt area. It was a great loss :( but all is still well and we can look forward to next week when yet again this arduous task is taken again, and hopefully this time not dropped! 

Hamlet act3

Act 3

 scene 1

- polonuis knows hamlet has crafty madness

- doesn't sense that hamlet is genuine 

- by looking like we are doing the right thing polonuis and Claudius figured it out and know that people will look good at them

- Claudius feels guilty 

- Ophelia rosencrantz guildenstern (on Claudius sides) set up to spy on hamlet

- hamlet doesn't trust Ophelia. Mom issues affect Ophelia and how he sees her

- easier to be seduced by beauty than honesty 

- doesn't love Ophelia anymore

- take out anger on Ophelia and beats everyone up and says everyone is actin like a fool 

- women corrupt men

- madness: insanity, and also being angry 

- Claudius and polonuis spied on hamlet and have idea that hamlet isn't insane and knows that there is something else so Claudius wants to remove the threat to stay safe

- polonuis has big ego and proposes that Gertrude talk to hamlet and try to get something out if him and polonuis will listen but if he is mad then send him off but if not then keep him

Scene 2 

- hamlet director

- act natural but act genuine 

- hamlet knows what he wants which shows that he is not crazy but clever

- Shakespeare comments on play within play(post modernism)

- first time we are seeing hamlet  giving thanks to horatio and their friendship. Horatio doesn't have ulterior motive 

- tells of how strong horatio is. Something hamlet believes himself not to be

- hamlet acts crazy to the guests to encourage his madness

- hart is making puns and is "merry" and says another dig to the queen about her short grieving

- the play suggests that Gertrude had the affair after the kings death and this give a little class to queen?

- the play has moral of how we make promises to ourselves that we can never carry out. We should embrace failure as part of life because when we change so does the world. Once we see that we can't carry through with the promise we should forgive ourselves. This is the opposite of what hamlet thinks and how he thinks himself a coward for not following through with his fathers avengance 

- "the lady protests too much me thinks" 

- the king calls off the play when the poison is poured down the kings ear and hamlet is successful in his plan

- rose and guil try to get hamlet to confess his guilt but hamlet doesn't cave and gloats and is happy for what he has done

- hamlet gets angry and shows guild and rose that he knows they are not on his side and are just using him

- hamlet blames others for his actions as the fool because the pity him

- hamlet wants to kill mother now

Scene 3 

- "I like him not"

- wants hamlet to go to england because dangerous

- king needs to keep country safe and encourage respect which hamlet was giving none of

- polonuis still adamant about hamlet being crazy from rejected love and wants to see him punished by queen why? 

- kings soliloquy is just as powerful as hamlets. Shows that he is rattled by the play( the murder of gonzago) and he knows hamlet knows of what he has done but no one else does. He feels exposed and knows god knows his secret and won't let him into heaven. To be forgiven for his sins he must repent them but he can't because he is still living in the glory of them( crown, queen, ambition). Asks for angels help and die everything to be well. 

- hamlet had chance to kill king but wouldn't be effective because king was praying and would go to heaven 

- kings attempt at praying failed so if hamlet had actually killed the king revenge would have been successful but hamlets saved his enemy due to his own thinking and caution. 

Scene 4 

- polonuis tells the queen to chew hamlet out and queen does so but acknowledges Claudius and hamlets father and that enrages hamlet. The queen gets up to leave but hamlet scares her and she thinks he is going to murder her but polonuis yells help and hamlet says rat and kills polonuis in the heart. Last words " o. I am slain." Why those many? 

- I think hamlet thinks e killed the king. "Nay I know not of, is it the king?"

- hamlet accuses queen of vein apart of king hamlet murder. Don't know if she knew beforehand or not

- hamlet is just ripping mother apart with words and shows her comparison if noble king hamlet and limp king Claudius

- ghost shows up and hart is interrupted and shows that he is more involved in unloading on mother than avenging his father 

- ghost tells hamlet to comfort his Mother and hamlet does so by describing himself to her. She thinks he is mad because she can't see the ghost and hamlets hairs are standing up

- hamlets losing sense of reality and duty from emotion

- hamlet asks mother to not sleep with Claudius at night to keep her virtue. Maybe he knows he is going to kill Claudius in bed and doesn't want to hurt mom?

- hamlet knows he will be punished for killing polonuis 

- hamlet wants his mother to say goodnight and she replies "what shall I do?"

- hamlet wants her mother to keep his secret and threatens her?(ape comparison)

- queen promises not to tell and never says goodnight

- hamlet carries polonuis body out and makes puns to him

The performative utterance

-hamlet couldn't make real of the scenarios in his head and of what was going on around him

- utterance means to express

- is troubled with physical not mental aspect of his duty

- like how the author uses cognitive paralysis as if he has no control over what he wants and cannot do

- what does author mean by performative language?( language that speaks for itself or doesn't need action to convey meaning?)

- locutionary force(ability of language to deliver a message), force of mutual intelligibility, illocutionary force(what is done is being said), perlicutionary force(what is achieved by being said) ( consequences of ones utterances)

- like acknowledge then cause and effect?

- self overhearing is key to self

- comes to see that language not only describes but does and this is an agent of chane in the world

- oath demonstrates how the illocutionary influences the perlocutionary 

- haet never stars that he will avenge his after so no connection between illocutionary and perlocutionary forced and thus no obligation

- false performative in hamlet?

- is self loathing the reaction of no action?(illocutionary force is not acting and perlocutionary force is self loathing?)

- what is difference between hamlet and the first player? First player has emotion or no emotion?

- effective acting is act of mimicking 

- to pretend you must not do

- polonuis and hamlet foils?

- shadows of conventional roles but hamlet is many roles and not just one 

- Claudius is man between extreme if polonuis and hamlet

- is guilt selfish?

- hamlet evolves toward faith, closure, and acceptance. Was this due to the fact that hamlet never said he would get revenge and this never connected the perfirmative forces?

- through this journey does hanlet have self realization through self overhearing or looking at others and is powered by them and their wrong doings to finally see that what he is doing is right and wrong?

Just something

When you listen to music try listening for the breaths that the artist takes. Once you hear them you can't unhear them. 

"To Be Or Not To Be"