Hamlet Test - Part 2
Hamlet Response
Demonstrate your critical thinking and effective writing skills in reflecting upon and responding to one of the following
prompts.
Make connections between the prompts/quotation and such things as your personal knowledge, experience and
observations; other texts; and the world around you.
Your response make take any form you want. It should be a unified piece of writing but does not have to be a literary
essay. Your response should be 300 – 500 words long.
A good response will
 be well written;
 demonstrate an appreciation of the subtleties of the text;
 make interesting observations and connections to other texts, contemporary situations, and/or personal
experience.
Option 1
Choose one of the following quotations. Explain its significance in terms of the overall play and extend from there. What
do you like about this line? What does it make you consider? What else does in relate to? How does it represent ideas that
are important to bear in mind?
a) Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
b) there is nothing
either good or bad, but thinking makes it so
c) I could be bounded in a nut shell and count
myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I
have bad dreams
d) Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core
e) to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Option 2
Find a contemporary work (literary work, film, video, magazine article, web text, image…please not The Lion King) that
relates to one of the important ideas in Hamlet.
Write about this connection. Do not focus on comparisons of plot or other basic features; focus on the comments these
works offer on society or human nature. Say something smart.
How does Hamlet show us the meaning or significance of this work? How does this work help us appreciate/make
meaning out of Hamlet or vice/versa? What universal question/idea/struggle is common to both these works?
Option 3
Hamlet (might be) eighteen years old I and he is looking around at the world he is to inherit. Although he sees some
beauty and potential in the world, on the whole, he is not impressed. What do you think? You’re eighteen (ish). Do you
have the same kind of thoughts? What other works confront this kind of issue? Explain.
Option 4
The Atlantic Magazine asked a bunch of famous people to identify the “Greatest fictional character of all time.” Two
people (out of around 10) chose Hamlet. Comment on one (or both, if you want) of their comments. Do you agree?
Disagree? Why? Here’s what they said:
Mark Haddon, author, The Red House and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Even in 1599 or thereabouts, Hamlet feels like us: depressed, conflicted, alienated, trapped. Or maybe he just feels
like me.
Alec Baldwin, actor
For men, it’s a toss-up between the Prince of Denmark and the Thane of Cawdor: paralysis through inaction versus
over-aggression. It’s a toss-up for the ladies as well, between Jane Eyre (life) and Blanche DuBois (death).