HAMLET
NAME________________________
ACT ONE
Answer the questions below.
1. Where does the play take place?
2. As the play opens, Horatio joins Bernardo and Marcellus at their night watch. Why
has Horatio joined them?
3. How does Horatio interpret the appearance of the Ghost?
4. What three questions does Marcellus raise?
a.
b.
c.
5. What three reasons does Horatio list for the superstitions of a ghost's returning from
the grave?
6. Why do Horatio and Marcellus decide to tell Hamlet about the Ghost?
Scene 2
7. What news does King Claudius announce at the opening of Scene 2?
8. Why does Claudius send Cornelius and Voltimand to Norway?
9. Why does Claudius want Hamlet to remain at court?
10. About how long has Hamlet's father been dead?
11. Explain why Hamlet says, "Frailty, thy name is woman"?
Scenes 3 through 5
12. Why does Laertes warn his sister Ophelia not to place too much hope in Hamlet's
attentions to her?
13. What does Laertes say must govern Hamlet's marriage choice?
14. What advice does Ophelia in turn give to Laertes?
15. Polonius gives a great deal of advice to his son Laertes. In this speech, Polonius
covers nine items of advice. In your own words, explain what the following items mean:
a. "Give thy thoughts no tongue,/ Nor any unproportioned thought his act."
b. "Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice."
c. "Neither a borrower nor a lender be; / For loan oft loses both itself and friend..."
16. What are Polonius's instructions to Ophelia about Hamlet?
17. What is happening at the court while Hamlet, Horatio and Marcellus are on the
platform?
18. What does the Ghost reveal about the manner of his death?
19. What three tasks does the Ghost tell Hamlet to undertake?
20. What future events does Act One prepare us to anticipate
a. in the relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia?
b. in Hamlet's behavior?
Act I Interpreting Meanings
One set of answers per study group to be turned in with the names
of people who participated in the discussion.
1. What does Hamlet mean by his very first line, the aside, “A little more than kin and
less than kind”? What does Scene ii in Act I reveal about Hamlet’s character--his
attitudes and abilities? What does Hamlet’s response in Scene ii to his mother--”I shall in
all my best obey you, madam”--reveal about his attitudes toward Claudius and Gertrude?
2.From one angle the play is about the relationships of fathers and sons. Compare the
relationship of Hamlet, Fortinbras, and Laertes to their fathers.
3. How do you suppose Ophelia feels after listening to her brother and her father talk
about her love life?
4. What is “rotten in the state of Denmark”? How does this spiritual pollution affect
simple truth, honesty, and plain dealing among people?
5. What does Hamlet mean by putting on an “antic disposition”? What does he hope to
accomplish? How does Hamlet’s disguise relate to the subjects of appearance vs. reality
and theater vs. life? (Remember Shakespeare’s favorite metaphor of the world as a stage.)
6. Compare Hamlet’s two soliloquies in Scenes ii and v. What do they reveal about the
changes in his nature? Why does he talk to himself in the first place?
7. What do you think of Hamlet’s approach to his problems? Are there other actions he
could take at this point to get what he wants?
Act II Interpreting Meanings
One set of answers per study group to be turned in with the names
of people who participated in the discussion.
1. What does the Queen know, and when does she know it?
2. Cite three examples of Hamlet’s sense of humor in his exchanges with Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern. In each instance, what’s the joke?
3. If Hamlet is acting as one distracted and confused in the scene Ophelia reports to
Polonius, why is he doing this if he loves her?
4. By the close of Act II, we have several “fishing” parties organized: by Claudius,
Polonius, and Hamlet himself. Who is being used by each man to fish for information or
truth under the surface of things?
5. How does these actions relate to the idea of life as theater? Which characters are NOT
involved in the make-believe? Which are wearing masks of one kind of another? What
kind of act are they putting on?
ACT III
1. Act III always marks the turning point in Shakespearean tragedy, the event or moment
that determines the hero’s fate. What would you say is the turning point in this act? Why
is this moment so crucial to the plot?
2. Compare Hamlet’s dialogues with the two women in his life, Ophelia and Gertrude in
Act III.
3. Show how Hamlet’s frustration and disgust becomes generalized in the soliloquy “To
be or not to be...” (Scene i). What makes life itself so miserable, as he now sees it? Do
you think he is suicidal, or is he just sounding off? Or is he just meditating on a common
problem?
4. Describe Hamlet’s state of mind as he moves from talking to himself to talking to
Ophelia (Scene i). Are there points at which he may be out of control? Explain.
5. In the scene with Gertrude, Hamlet appears to overdo it at times. Where?
6. Has Hamlet changed in character or behavior in this act? Explain.
7. What do you think of the way Ophelia is being used?
Hamlet
Act II
Study Guide
Scene 1
1. At the opening of the scene, where is Polonius sending Reynaldo?
2. Why does Polonius send him on this journey?
3. By what trick is Reynaldo supposed to get information about Laertes?
4. What does this reveal about Polonius’s character?
5. How does Ophelia describe Hamlet’s appearance to Polonius?
6. What is Polonius’s conclusion about Hamlet?
Scene 2
7. At the beginning of Scene 2, for whom has Claudius sent?
8. Why has he sent for them?
9. What news do Voltimand and Cornelius bring back from Norway?
10. What request does Norway make of Claudius?
11. What is humorously ironic about Polonius saying, “Brevity is the soul of wit”?
12. What plan is formed to test Polonius’s hypothesis concerning Hamlet?
13. Hamlet calls Polonius a “fishmonger.” Why?
14. What does Polonius say about the contrast between madness and sanity?
Continuing Act II
15. Why does Hamlet tell Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that “Denmark’s a prison”?
16. According to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, why are the players traveling?
17. Hamlet realizes that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern cannot be trusted. What does he
let them know?
18. Why does Hamlet call Polonius “Jephthah”?
19. Hamlet and the First Player recite lines from a play, one that tells how Pyrrhus slays
the Trojan king Priam to avenge his father’s murder. How is Hamlet like Pyrrhus?
How is he unlike Pyrrhus?
20. What causes Hamlet to exclaim, “O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I”?
21. What plan does Hamlet devise to demonstrate Claudius’s guilt?
22. Why does Hamlet feel he must have evidence of the king’s guilt?
23. What qualities of character does Hamlet possess, as seen in Acts I and II?
Hamlet
Act III
Reading Guide
Scene 1
1. What do Rosencrantz and Guildenstern report to Claudius?
2. How does Claudius react when Polonius says, “…with devotion’s visage, And pious
action we do sugar o’er/The devil himself”?
3. What plan to Polonius, Claudius, and Ophelia put into action?
4. What is the nature of Hamlet’s soliloquy (To be or not to be…)?
5. What is Hamlet’s main argument against suicide?
6. Why does Hamlet treat Ophelia cruelly as he does? What has changed him?
7. What thinly-veiled threat to Claudius does Hamlet voice, after he becomes aware of
his hidden presence?
8. At the end of the scene, what does the King decide to do with Hamlet?
Scene 2
9. What qualities in Horatio cause Hamlet to enlist his service?
10. What does Hamlet ask Horatio to do?
11. What happens in the play-within-a-play?
12. Why does Hamlet refer to this play as “The Mouse-trap”?
13. What is the King’s reaction to the play?
14. As Hamlet does to his mother at the end of the scene, what does he admonish himself
to do?
Scene 3
15. What does Claudius ask Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to do?
16. What does Claudius find nearly impossible to do?
17. Why doesn’t Hamlet kill Claudius when he discovers him in an attitude of prayer?
Scene 4
18. What does Polonius urge the Queen to do?
19. Under what misapprehension does Hamlet slay Polonius?
20. Why does the ghost appear to Hamlet again?
21. What does Hamlet ask of his mother?
22. The climax is the turning point in a play when the action changes course and begins to
resolve itself. It is generally agreed upon that the climax of Hamlet occurs in Act III.
When does it occur?
Hamlet
Act IV
Reading Guide
Scenes 1& 2
1. How does the queen protect Hamlet?
2. What does Claudius ask Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to do?
3. What does Hamlet mean when he calls Rosencrantz a “sponge”?
Scene 3
4. Why does Claudius say he must hide the haste with which Hamlet is being sent
away?
5. What does Hamlet tell Claudius he has done with Polonius?
6. What does Claudius arrange to happen to Hamlet when he arrives in England?
Scene 4
7. Who does Hamlet meet in this scene?
8. What purpose unites Fortinbras’s troops?
9. What effect does this meeting have on Hamlet?
Scenes 5 & 6
10. What has happened to Ophelia?
11. Why does the Queen agree to see her?
12. What are the problems Claudius identifies?
13. Why does Laertes break into Claudius’s chamber?
14. What does Claudius tell Laertes to do?
15. What happens to Hamlet during his passage to England?
Scene 7
16. What does Laertes ask Claudius?
17. What is the King’s response?
18. What scene is planned by Claudius and Laertes?
19. What is their backup plan?
20. What news does the Queen bring?
21. Considering Ophelia’s actions throughout Act IV, do you believe her death is an
accident or suicide? Explain.
Act IV Interpreting Meanings
One set of answers per study group to be turned in with the names
of people who participated in the discussion.
1. Compare the mad scenes of Hamlet and Ophelia in Act IV. What do the scenes
reveal about the nature of each character, and his or her vulnerability?
2. How much does Horatio have to do in Act IV? Why is his part in the action so small?
3. Look at Act IV, scene iv and describe Hamlet’s feelings at this point about the
relationship of thought to action, and about the idea of honor.
4. Consider Ophelia’s thought, “We know what we are but know not what we may be.”
Discuss how it relates to herself, to Hamlet, and to Gertrude.
5. Examine Hamlet’s use of humor in his confrontation with the King (scene iii). How
much of Hamlet’s jokes and puns could be considered as treason if he werenot,
supposedly, insane?
6. What problems exist in the play at the end of Act IV? In what different ways might
they be resolved? Can the play end happily?