For your final writing assignment, you will write three responses from the questions below. Each
response should be 2 pages (min and max), double spaced, 12-point font, Times New Roman, 1
inch margins. You will need to answer the questions as thoroughly as possible, attempting to
present a clear argument that is supported by evidence and analysis. This assignment is due via
email on December 17th by the end of the day (11:59PM) as a Word.doc to
Meeting Hamlet: What are your first impressions of Hamlet in Act I, scene ii?
When we first see Hamlet, he is self-isolated, that is, he is sitting or standing apart, his black
clothing sets him off from the colorful and luxurious clothing of the court, and he holds himself
apart emotionally. He ignores the King as much as he can and makes cutting responses to his
mother as well as to the King.
Do you think his attitude and behavior are justified by his circumstances (father’s death two
months earlier and mother’s remarriage to his uncle)? Or do you think that his behavior is
extreme and that something else is going on emotionally with Hamlet, even if you don’t know yet
what it might be? (Other possible explanations for his behavior: he might be unduly attached to
his mother or to his father, be extremely egocentric, or be unrealistically idealistic and naive.
Maybe he’s just been spoiled by his mother.)
The Ghost’s Functions and Effects:
The Ghost introduces or develops a number of major elements in this play: appearance and
reality; the poison, disease, death, revenge, and rotting imagery which runs through the play;
mysteriousness; loss and aloneness; undeserved suffering and destruction.
Shakespeare also uses him to arouse powerful emotions in the audience–horror and fear (look
especially at his speeches in I.v.9-91). Do his speeches arouse our pity? Certainly the Ghost’s
speeches arouse pity in Hamlet, who refers to him as “thou poor ghost” (I.v.96).
Does Hamlet’s age matter? The play is contradictory about Hamlet’s age.
According to the gravedigger, Hamlet is 30; the gravedigger says he became a gravedigger when
Hamlet was born, thirty years earlier (V.i.146-64). However, Horatio tells the guards they should
speak to “young Hamlet” (I, i). Laertes too calls him a “youth” (I.iii.6). Ophelia refers to his
“blown [blooming] youth” (III.i.162). And Polonius comments, “he is young” (I.iii.125).
Hamlet’s wanting to return to Wittenberg and the university suggests he is still a student. These
references suggest he is no older than 20.
There are a number of possible explanations for this discrepancy: the play was revised, whether
by Shakespeare, an actor, or a manager; it is a misprint; it is a miscopying (in Shakespeare’s day
Roman numerals were often used, instead of Arabic numerals).
But what I am interested in is the effect of his age. Do we judge Hamlet and look at the action
differently if Hamlet is in his late teens rather than if he is a thirty-year old man? Does his age
Professor Denzer – Great Works of World Literature – Final Writing Assignment and Final
Projects
affect anything else in the play–for instance, does his age affect the way we see his relationship
with Ophelia or the way we see the Queen and his response to her?
The Ghost’s Nature: Is the Ghost, as Hamlet says, only “an honest ghost” (I.v.138)?
G. Wilson Knight thinks the Ghost is enigmatic1 or ambiguous2. He calls the Ghost “a thing of
darkness.” In his view, the Ghost is unnatural, something which the living must reject; at the
same time, the Ghost is a loved father, an honored king. Father and King: both are important.
The ideals of love and kingship are at stake. But that father, that king, is dead. So, clearly, the
Ghost is also Death….He certainly tells a tale which enlists our sympathy. He is morally justified
by all forms of justice and punishment we have been discussing thus far. In a way, we might
think of the Ghost’s desire for revenge similar to the revenge of Odysseus or Arjuna. However,
much of the description of the text suggests a darkness about the king, a sinister quality about
him. G. Wilson Knight argues that the Ghost cannot be a purely good apparition. Rather, it is
related to evil. How do you see the Ghost within the context of the play? Is he a guide similar to
Athena, Krishna, and Virgil? Or is he something else entirely, which forces us to reexamine the
hero’s in an entirely different way?
Hamlet’s Madness: Is Hamlet mad? Does his being mad all the time, some of the time, or
none of the time affect the play?
E.K. Chambers ties the issue of Hamlet’s madness to the need for the tragic hero to have free
will, for his fate to be the consequence of the choices he freely makes and is responsible for. He
believes, Shakespeare did not mean Hamlet to be mad in any sense which would put his actions
in a quite different category from those of other men. How could it be so, since the responsibility
of the free agent is of the essence of psychological tragedy, and to have eliminated Hamlet’s
responsibility would have been to divest his story of humanity and leave it meaningless?
Does Hamlet achieve revenge?
How might we think about Hamlet’s revenge? In the end, he does achieve what the ghost asked
him to do, but at the consequence of everyone else, including himself. How might we compare
the conversations we’ve had in class about action vs. inaction, the hero’s journey, as well as
human reason and choice to the events of the play. What is the play potentially arguing about
action, justice, and choice? In this answer, you must discuss the larger conversations we’ve been
having all semester, including comparisons and synthesis to other texts we’ve read, especially
the philosophical concepts of human reason, free will, and duty.
Poison-corruption-disease-rotting-garbage imagery runs through Hamlet:
These images have a basis in the action of the play: the real poison that Claudius pours in King
Hamlet’s ear spreads through his whole body and causes it to be covered with a “vile and
loathesome crust,” like leprosy (I.v.72). Similarly, Claudius’s act spreads through Denmark
Professor Denzer – Great Works of World Literature – Final Writing Assignment and Final
Projects
causing disorder (the state or kingdom is often called “the body politic,” meaning, the political
body or nation).
King Hamlet’s murder, W.H. Clemen explains, “is expanded into a symbol for the central
problem of the play. The corruption of land and people throughout Denmark is understood as an
imperceptible and irresistible process of poisoning”; the people and the nation are diseased;
decay is spreading inexorably throughout the kingdom. Thus the imagery parallels and reinforces
the action and contributes to the feeling and atmosphere of the play.
For example:
• There’s something ROTTEN in the state of Denmark. (I.iv.90)
• And in the morn and liquid dew of youth CONTAGIOUS blastments are most imminent.
(I.iii.41-2)
• So lust, though to a radiant angel linked, /Will sate itself in a celestial bed /And prey on
GARBAGE (I.v.55-8)
Is Hamlet good or bad and does it matter?
In his Poetics, Aristotle said that tragedy arouses pity and fear in the audience. In order for the
tragic hero to arouse these feelings in the audience, he cannot be either all good or all evil but
must be someone the audience can identify with. Does Hamlet meet Aristotle’s criteria (criterion,
singular form: standard; criteria, plural form)? You might consider one criterion, two criteria, or
all three:
• Does Hamlet arouse pity and fear in the audience?
• Is Hamlet all good or all bad?
• Is Hamlet someone whom the audience can identify with?
You may answer in general terms (that is, how PEOPLE or AUDIENCES feel) or personal terms
(that is, how YOU feel).
