Hamlet
Essay Topics
Directions: Select from the topics below for your essay on Hamlet. This will be
a performance grade and needs to be 3-4 pages in length. You must use textdocumentation in order to get credit.
1. Discuss Hamlet’s treatment of and ideas about women. How might
these help to clarify some of the interpretative issues of the play? You
might want to consider carefully the way he talks about sexuality.
2. Aristotle said that consistency and probability are the two most
important elements in the drama. Does Shakespeare, in creating the
characters in Hamlet. Follow or ignore this idea? You may consider both
major and minor characters.
3. Discuss Shakespeare’s use of figures from nature (weeds, worms, etc.) or
of sickness and contagion. How do these add to the theme of tragedy?
4. Compare Laertes with Hamlet: both react to their fathers’
killing/murder. Is the reaction of either right or wrong? Use text
references as support for your opinion.
5. How important is the Ghost in the triangular relationship of Hamlet,
Gertrude, and Claudius? Be sure to discuss each character.
6. Although Hamlet ultimately rejects it at the end of the play, suicide is an
ever-present solution to the problems in the drama. Discuss the play’s
suggestion of suicide and imagery of death, with particular attention to
Hamlet’s two important statements about suicide: the “O that this too,
too solid flesh would melt” soliloquy and the “To be, or not to be”
soliloquy.
7. Analyze the use of descriptions and images in Hamlet. How does
Shakespeare use descriptive language to enhance the visual possibilities
of a stage production? How does he use imagery to create a mood of
tension, fear, and despair?
8. Does Hamlet live and die by making free choices, or are his choices
controlled by forces larger than himself? Use text references as your
support.
9. Mel Gibson says that all of the deaths during the play result from
Hamlet’s decision to not kill Claudius while he is praying. Agree or
disagree and explain why.
10. Conflicts are essential to drama. Show that Hamlet presents both an
outward and an inward conflict.
11. One critic has written of Claudius that he is “a good king, but a bad
man”. In your opinion is this true? Cite using text-based references.
12. Consider the staging of a crucial scene—Hamlet and Gertrude in the
queen’s bedroom. How do the staging elements make this scene
plausible? How do the music, props, costumes, scenery, camera work,
blocking, sound effects, use of light, shadow, and color all contribute to
making Hamlet’s recruiting of Gertrude to his cause believable?
13. Was the killing of Polonius a choice or a reaction to Hamlet’s own state
of mind and (mistaken) assumptions? Explain.
14. Did Hamlet obtain justice or revenge at the end of the play?
15. Weigh two of Hamlet’s soliloquy’s to consider whether he seems willful,
purposeful, or driven by madness or fate.