Professional Documents
Culture Documents
HAMLET (Excellent Reference to Students)
HAMLET (Excellent Reference to Students)
Playwright…
“The remarkable thing about
William Shakespeare is that he
really
is very good, in spite of all the people
who say he is very good.”
-Robert Graves
William Shakespeare
Elements
of a
Play
Elements of a Play
1.) PLOT
-the arrangement of events or
incidents on the stage.
-composed of “clearly defined
problems for characters to solve.”
PLOT
• Exposition- background information.
• Inciting Incident or Conflict- the event
that’s sets in motion the action of the play.
• Rising Action- Complications and
discoveries, which create conflict.
• Climax- turning point of the plot,
emotional intensity of play.
• Falling Action- series of events following
the climax.
• Denouement- “unknotting” resolution of
the conflicts.
2. CHARACTER
– The agents of the plot.
– Characters provide the
motivations (reasons) for the events
of the plot.
– “Vivid characters” face and
overcome “obstacles that we can
recognize.”
– they provide the vehicle for conflict.
CHARACTER
a) Protagonist- main character
b) Antagonist- person, situation, or
inner conflict in opposition to the main
character’s goals.
c) Secondary Characters- all other
characters other than protagonist and
antagonist.
3. SETTING
-When and where does it happen?
a) Viewable elements
b) Common sights and sounds to
enhance time and place
c) Sound effects and or music contribute
to time and place
4. THEME
- The playwright’s message
- The theme is expressed through
words and actions of the
characters in a series of situations
that make up the plot. Each
situation takes place in a setting.
5. LANGUAGE
- “Vivid characters” facing and
overcoming recognizable obstacles need
to express themselves in “heightened
language.”
– Dramatic dialogue consists of two parts:
narrative and dramatic.
6. RHYTHM
The heart of the play. Plot,
character, language, and spectacle all
have their individual rhythms in time.
The combination of all these
rhythms create the impelling force of
the play leading to a final climax and
denouement.
Rhythm creates mood.
7. SPECTACLE
Everything that is seen or heard on
stage. Actors, sets, costumes, lights and
sound.
NOTE: All plays have spectacle—some
emphasize spectacle more than others.
The Tragedy of
Hamlet ,
Prince of Denmark
Voltimand and
Cornelius - Courtiers whom
Claudius sends to Norway to
persuade the king to prevent
Fortinbras from attacking.
Marcellus and Bernardo - The
officers who first see the ghost walking the
ramparts of Elsinore and who summon Horatio
to witness it. Marcellus is present when Hamlet
first encounters the ghost.
Francisco - A soldier and guardsman at
Elsinore.
Reynaldo - Polonius’s servant, who is sent
to France by Polonius to check up on and spy
on Laertes.
Plot
Exposition information – In the story Hamlet is a
prince of Denmark, his father was the king. The King had
died, before anything could have happened. Hamlet’s
uncle Claudius had his marriage with the queen Gertrude
or Hamlet’s mother, and then soon he owned the throne.
Then one day Hamlet’s father appear in a form of ghost in
front of hamlet’s eye and informed him that Claudius was
the one who murdered him and so hamlets swore to take
the revenge.
Plot
Inciting incident or conflict –
Hamlet’s king was murdered by Claudius
and Hamlet’s swore to take revenge for
his father.
Rising Action –Hamlet then got the idea to let
the actors performed the murdered situation of his
father’s case. As he was told from the ghost and
observed how will Claudius respond. After the play
displayed the scene of how his father’s was murdered,
Claudius stood up with anger then left to be alone. He
then pray to the lord to ask for forgiveness then
admitted that he did murdered Hamlet’s father. Hamlet
hesitated to kill Claudius with his sword behind him,
but he feared that if he were to kill Claudius while he is
praying he’ll sure go to heaven but Hamlet’s wanted
him to go to hell.
Climax – First climax: When Hamlet stabs
Polonius after the talk with his mother on trying to
tell her why she’s wrong in sleeping with Claudius,
as then he committed himself due to his violent
action and brings himself into a conflict with the
king.
Second Climax: In the fencing match
when Gertrude started to drink the poisonous drink
that Claudius intentionally made for Hamlet’s, then
they all started to fight and died.
Falling action – Ophelia decided to suicide
due because of her father’s death. Hamlet then
was sent to England by Claudius and was meant
to put to death, but soon people realized that
Hamlet was alive because he maintained to
retrieve the death sentence letter. Hamlet then
fought the fencing match.
Denouement – Hamlet told Rachael to
remain and announce the truth, later Prince
of Norway, Fortinbras arrived with his army
and so he saw that the whole family had
died, he claim the kingdom for himself.
Setting
- Late middle ages in
Denmark at the royal palace.
Genre
-Revenge Tragedy, Tragedy
THEME
a. The Impossibility of Certainty
This play poses many questions that other plays
would simply take for granted.
About the ghost’s apparition; Hamlet’s father’s
death; Hamlet’s insanity
The play shows us how many uncertainties
our lives are built upon, how many unknown
quantities are taken for granted when people act or
when they evaluate one another’s actions.
THEME
b. The Complexity of Action
In Hamlet, the question of how to act is
affected not only by rational considerations,
such as the need for certainty, but also by
emotional, ethical, and psychological factors.
Hamlet himself appears to distrust the idea that
it’s even possible to act in a controlled,
purposeful way.
THEME
c. The Mystery of Death
Throughout, the idea of death is closely tied to
the themes of spirituality, truth, and uncertainty
in that death may bring the answers to
Hamlet’s deepest questions, ending once and
for all the problem of trying to determine truth
in an ambiguous world.
And, since death is both the cause and the
consequence of revenge, it is intimately tied to
the theme of revenge and justice.
THEME
d. The Nation as a Diseased Body