Literature Analysis
1. Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark,
was visited by the ghost of his father. His father told him that his uncle,
Claudius, killed him. He hired actors to do a play similar to how his father
got killed to see how Claudius reacts. Claudius was proven guilty. Hamlet
started to fall in love with Ophelia, Polonius’ daughter, but then he realized
that all women are weak after he saw what his mother did to Claudius. While Hamlet
was being rude to his mother because of what happened between her and Claudius,
Polonius was hiding in the closet. When he got out of the closet, Hamlet
stabbed him with a sword, thinking he’s Claudius. Polonius was Ophelia was
grieving about this. She got really upset and she drowns in the river and dies.
When Laertes heard about this news, he came back to Denmark and seeks revenge
for Hamlet. Claudius and Laertes planned things, and that’s how everything
tragic happened.
2. The
first theme that comes to mind is the theme of Appearance or Reality. Hamlet is visited by his father's ghost who
tells him to avenge his death. In order
to do this the reader sees Hamlet as mad.
It then falls to the reader to determine if Hamlet is mad or pretending
to be mad. The next theme is the theme of family responsibility. Hamlet is obsessed with the decision he has
to make as to whether or not he should kill his uncle and avenge his father's
death. In addition, he has his mother to
think of and how he feels about her. Death is also a reoccurring theme in
Hamlet. First his father is killed, Ophelia's
father dies, Ophelia kills herself, and in the end Hamlet is dead.
3. I chose this book simply because it’s Shakespeare.
It caught my attention because when you say Hamlet, it’s automatically a
Shakespeare play. I wanted to keep reading this book because I’ve never read a
book that is all about tragic events. I picked Hamlet because I really want to
know about it, but the way how Shakespeare wrote it held me back. Now, I took
the time and actually try to understand the story.
4. I found this book both realistic and
not. It’s realistic because today, people are still into fighting over love. On
the other hand, it’s not realistic because today no one marries people in their
family.
5. 1. “Something is rotten in the state
of Denmark.” (Act. 1, Scene 4 , Line 67) Marcellus said this to Horatio because it's stating that something terrible is going to happen in Denmark.
2. “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?—To die,—to sleep,—
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,—’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die,—to sleep;—
To sleep: perchance to dream:—ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despis’d love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,—
The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns,—puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.” (Act. 3, Scene 1, Line 55) Hamlet's tone in this quote shows desperation. Hamlet was thinking about committing suicide because he was really sad and depressed about his father and Ophelia died in this story.
3.Heaven and earth,
Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on, and yet, within a month—
Let me not think on't—Frailty, thy name is woman!—
(Act 1, Scene 2) Shakespeare is trying to say that women are very weak. Hamlet stated this quote because his mother married Claudius right after his father died. She betrayed Hamlet's father very fast, and Claudius is very upset/depressed about it.
6. 1. Simile: "My
father's brother, but no more like my father / Than I to Hercules." (page
11, act 1 scene 2) He is saying that
Claudius is no more like King Hamlet than Hamlet is like Hercules.
2. Metaphor: "O, my offence is rank, it smells to
heaven."(page 66, act 3 scene 3) The King is comparing his killing of his
brother to a foul bodily odor.
3. Dialogue: “example: THE ENTIRE PLAY” As it
is a play the entire book is made up of dialogue. Shakespeare's books are
4. Metaphor: "Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth." Polonius refers the bait as the lie, and the carp represents as the truth.
5. Personification:
“How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself, as I perchance hereafter shall think
meet, to put an antic disposition on” (Act. 1, Scene 5, Line 58) Hamlet adopts
a false personification as one of the earliest documented uses of the literary
techniques, he pretends to be insane, mad in order to fool Claudius, his
mother, everyone for that mother to further his revenge plot.
6. Symbolism: “Alas,
poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent
fancy. He hath bore me on his back a thousand times, and now how abhorr'd in my
imagination it is! My gorge rises at it.” (Act. 5, Scene 1, Line 179) Another
famous passage, the symbolism here is palpable as Hamlet speaks to “Yorick’s”
(Ophelia’s ironically) skull the skull itself a emblem for mortality, that time
delivers all both the kings and pawns to the same end.
7. Simile: “Like
an angel...a god” (Act. 2, Scene 2, Line 30) Even Shakespeare made use of the
rhetorical strategy basics, here likening Ophelia as a kind and caring, nearly
substitute mother figure to Hamlet as mothers often times are both angels, and
god in the eyes of children, unable to do any wrong.
8.
Motif: “I am thy father's spirit,
Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confined to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine:
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list!
If thou didst ever thy dear father love--
Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder!” (Act. 1, Scene
5, Line 5) the motif is about revenge. This whole story/play is all about Hamlet wanting to have a revenge for his uncle-father Claudius.
9. Hyperbole: “In
the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets:
As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun; and the moist star
Upon whose influence Neptune and empire stands
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse:” (Act.1, Scene 1) He's scared that the ghost might be something that will signify that something bad is going to happen.
10.
Personification: “When yond same star that westward from the pole; Had made his
course to illume that part of heaven; Where now it burns,” ( Act. 1, Scene 1) The
star was in that same spot last night when the ghost appeared
Characterization
1.
DIRECT CHARACTERIZATION
1. “...She married. O, most wicked
speed, to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets!”
This directly characterizes Queen Gertrude because of the betrayal she did to Hamlet's father.
2. “To give these mourning duties to your father;
But you must know, your father lost a father; That father lost his, and the
survivor bound in filial obligation for some term to do obsequious sorrow.”
This reperesents hamlet's character because this is how he has been ever since his father died.
INDIRECT CHARACTERIZATION
1.
"Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial, fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there,
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmixed with baser matter." Hamlet is trying to say that he should erase the past so he can get a revenge of what Claudius did.
2. “Though yet of Hamlet our dear
brother's death
The memory be green, and that it us befitted
To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe,
Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature
That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
Together with remembrance of ourselves.”
King Claudius was stating this speech in this way because he has to since he is now the king.
2. No, because
he was very consistent throughout the story with all the characters.
3.Hamlet is
dynamic because his attitudes and actions at the end of the play changed from
how he was in the beginning. He’s a round character because he has his
strengths, his flaws, and has his motivations.
4. “If thou dost
marry, I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry. Be thou as chaste as ice, as
pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go.
Farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well
enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go, and quickly too.
Farewell.”
I get to interact with people that have this character-
being judgmental, insulting, and full of sarcasm. People today, in general, are
very critical of others. Most people in school are like that. They judge you
with what you wear, who you hang out with, etc… I honestly hate it because they
don’t even know what they’re talking about. They get very judgmental, but they're also doing things that would make everyone judge them. I really don't like people who are like that. That's why there's a saying "What goes around comes around."
Enduring Memory
“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?—To die,—to sleep,—
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,—’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die,—to sleep;—
To sleep: perchance to dream:—ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despis’d love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,—
The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns,—puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.”
I will remember this quote because
this is Shakespeare’s most famous quote. Because it's the opening line of a
speech that questions the existence of human’s life worth living or not? When
really bad stuff happens to you, and the world seems like an awful place,
should you suck it up and persevere or give up and die? I think that a lot of
people want to die or commit suicide because of all of the problems that they
are facing. People need to know how lucky we are that we are alive, and that we
need to be appreciative about it. This quote by Shakespeare is trying to tell
us not to commit suicide just because we think that we can’t face problems. Every
problem has a solution.
