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Choose a play in which a power struggle is
central to the action.
Explain briefly the circumstances of the
power struggle and discuss the extent to
which it contributes to your appreciation of
theme and/or character in the play as a
whole.
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Choose a play in which a power struggle is
central to the action.
Explain briefly the circumstances of the
power struggle and discuss the extent to
which it contributes to your appreciation of
theme and/or character in the play as a
whole.
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Power struggle: between Claudius and
Hamlet.
Circumstances: Old Hamlet- the king- has
recently died. Claudius, his brother, has taken
the throne and married his widow, Gertrude.
Hamlet, Old Hamlet’s son, discovers that
Hamlet was murdered by Claudius. He swears
revenge but repeatedly procrastinates.
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Appreciation of theme: nature and legitimacy
of revenge / difficulty in distinguishing
between appearance and reality/
Character- Hamlet: thoughtful, intellectual,
melancholy, procrastinates- not suited to role
as revenge hero, constantly considers moral
consequences of his actions
Character- Claudius: evil, ruthless,
Machiavellian, manipulative, sinful.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Circumstances of the power struggle
(perhaps add to introduction).
Understanding of Hamlet’s character- initial
unhappiness
Characterisation of Claudius- Ghost scene/
manipulation of Leartes/ soliloquy
Hamlet’s procrastination
‘To be, or not to be’.
Final scene- the climax of the power
struggle
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Understanding of Hamlet’s character- initial
unhappiness
Hamlet’s isolation within Elsinore depicted
His dislike of Claudius highlighted
His misery and longing for death revealed in
his first soliloquy
This is the result of Claudius’ power. This
helps to prepare the audience for the power
struggle
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‘A little more than kin, and less than kind.’
‘more than kin’ now he’s both Claudius’
nephew and his stepson. ‘Less than kind’ in
two senses: not kindly disposed to Claudius,
nor does he think he is of the same kind.
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‘ I am too much i’ th’ sun.’
He is having too much of his uncle calling
him sun, and also of the Sun. Hamlet, we will
soon discover, longs for death- to be out of
the sun.
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‘Seems Madam? Nay, it is: I know not seems:’
This speech develops the theme of
appearance and reality. Hamlet reacts
furiously, feeling that his mother is implying
that his mourning is playacting.
Hamlet feels it is his mother who must have
been acting the bereaved widow just a week
or two previously.
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O, that this too too sullied flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!
Hamlet reveals his deep anguish and melancholy.
He wishes to die, but suicide is viewed as a sin. He
desires to dissolve into dew- an impermanent
substance.
Contrast established between what is seen as
divine and what is seen as earthly (soiled flesh).
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Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in
nature
Possess it merely.
Image of an untended garden leading to
disease and corruption. Shakespeare’s
imagery suggests that incestuous marriage is
a violation of nature, which creates disease in
the King’s court.
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So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly.
Juxtaposition used to highlight difference between
Old Hamlet and Claudius. Hyperion-the Titan god
of light, represents honour, virtue, and regality -all traits belonging to Hamlet's father, the true
King of Denmark.
Satyrs, the half-human and half-beast companions
of the wine-god Dionysus, represent lasciviousness
and overindulgence, much like Hamlet's usurping
uncle Claudius.
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Manipulation of empty rhetoric in 1,2 (
appearance and reality)
Description of him as snake/ serpent by the
Ghost
Commits regicide, fratricide and incestgreat sins to Shakespeare’s audience.
Driven on by ambition. (Look at his soliloquy
for this).
'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,
A serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forgèd process of my death
Rankly abused. But know, thou noble youth,
The serpent that did sting thy father’s life
Now wears his crown.
Metaphor used to highlight how Denmark is
infected/ corrupted by Claudius’ actions.
Serpent is symbolic here. Represents the destruction
of Adam’s happiness in the Garden of Eden and the
introduction of sin into the world. Claudius is ‘the
serpent’ who now wears the crown.
In his only soliloquy, Claudius reveals his
guilt over the killing of his brother:
“Oh, my offence is rank. It smells to heaven.
It hath the primal eldest curse upon ’t,
A brother’s murder. Pray can I not.”
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Manipulation of Laertes
Link to theme of revenge
“To cut his throat i' the church.”
C: ‘No place indeed should murder sanctuarize;
Revenge should have no bounds.”
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Loves his father deeply and wants revenge
To kill someone in cold blood is not in his
nature; he is miscast as a revenge hero.
Concerned with the consequences of his
actions, particularly in regards to his soul the
life to come.
Does not kill Claudius when the opportunity
presents itself.
It is his power struggle with Claudius that
reveals these aspects of his character to the
audience.
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Unlike other soliloquies, this speech does
consider the play’s action.
Concentrates on general philosophical
musing on some of the play’s main themes.
These musings are caused by Hamlet’s power
struggle with Claudius, and they reveal how
his character develops as a result of this
struggle.
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To be, or not to be: that is the question:
To live, or to die. This is the problem/
question that Hamlet considers in this
soliloquy.
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?
Here Hamlet considers whether it is better to suffer
life’s misfortunes ‘slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune’, or to actively seek to end one’s troubles.
The metaphor ‘to take arms against a sea of
troubles, /And by opposing end them’ compares
the idea of hopeless resistance to life’s ills to the
futility of fighting against the sea. This captures
Hamlets feelings of being unequal to the task that
has been assigned to him.
To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd.
Hamlet compares death to sleep and thinks of the
end to suffering, pain, and uncertainty it might
bring. However, ‘Devoutly’ is a religious word,
which suggests that there is more than simply an
end to suffering to be considered.
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:
Hamlet alters his metaphor of sleep to include the
possibility of dreaming; he says that the dreams
that may come in the sleep of death are daunting,
that they “must give us pause.”
‘Rub’ – obstacle
This mortal coil- this earthly life/ physical body/
earthly suffering
there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
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Hamlet decides that it is this uncertainty and
fear about the nature of the afterlife that
makes us stretch out the suffering of life so
long.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
A powerful metaphor which depicts Time as whipping
suffering humans and exposing us to scorn. In
Elizabethan times, criminals were whipped in public.
This image is being used to introduce the sufferings
that humans would endure in their lives.
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised 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?
 Here Hamlet lists a series of the scorns of times,
ranging from lovesickness to hard work to political
oppression, and asks who would choose to bear
those miseries if he could bring himself peace with
a knife.
 ‘Quietus’ -peace
 ‘Bodkin’ - dagger
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?
Hamlet decides that it is terror /dread of the afterlife
which makes people submit to the suffering of
their lives rather than go to another state of
existence which might be even more miserable.
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.
Consideration of the uncertainty of the afterlife leads
to excessive moral sensitivity, which makes action
impossible. This mirrors Hamlet’s own situation
where uncertainty over the Ghost’s identity leads
him to contemplation and prevents him from
acting.
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In this scene, Hamlet’s character has
developed into someone who realises that
there are times when action is required.
Briefly refer to his final soliloquy (How all
occasions do inform against me,)
as the turning point for this development.
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Does it not, think'st thee, stand me now upon-He that hath kill'd my king and whored my
mother,
Popp'd in between the election and my hopes,
Thrown out his angle for my proper life,
And with such cozenage--is't not perfect
conscience,
To quit him with this arm? and is't not to be
damn'd,
To let this canker of our nature come
In further evil?
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Hamlet also is no longer tortured by thoughts
about suicide and death.
there's a special
providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now,
'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the
readiness is all:
Hamlet expresses forcefully his belief in God. All
that matters is being prepared for the next world.
Death will happen when God decides; there is no
need to struggle against it or to wish for it to
happen sooner.
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Discuss the symbolic nature of the deaths
Hamlet, Laertes, Gertrude and Claudius are
killed by the poison that Claudius’ regicide
and incest caused to infect Denmark.
Hamlet is a martyr as his death ends the
power struggle and cleanses Denmark of
Claudius’ sinful rule.