Name: ______________________________________ Hour:_______ Date:_____________
Hamlet Key Terms
Foil _______________________________________________________________________
Tragic Hero ________________________________________________________________
Tragic Flaw_________________________________________________________________
Comic Relief _______________________________________________________________
Conflict (Internal and External) ________________________________________________
Mood _____________________________________________________________________
Hamlet Discussion and Analysis Questions
Answer each of the following questions as you watch the movie and read the play.
Act I Scene i
1. What is the setting for the play?
2. How is the Ghost described?
3. Why did Shakespeare include the background conflict of King Hamlet and King Fortinbras?
5. How does Horatio describe the war preparations?
Scene ii
1. How are Claudius, the dead King Hamlet and Queen Gertrude related?
2. Who is Laertes? Why does he want to leave Denmark?
3. Why is young Hamlet grieving?
4. How do Claudius and Gertrude treat his grief?
5. What kind of language does Hamlet use when talking about his mother?
6. Who is Horatio?
7. What does he reveal to Hamlet?
Scene iii
1. What advice does Laertes give Ophelia?
2. What advice does Polonius give Laertes?
3. What advice does Polonius give Ophelia?
4. What impression do you get about Ophelia with these exchanges?
5. What impression do you get about Polonious from these exchanges?
Scene iv
1. What mixed feelings does Hamlet have when he sees the ghost?
2. Why doesn’t Horatio want Hamlet to follow the Ghost?
Scene v
1. What does the Ghost tell Hamlet?
2. How does the Ghost want Hamlet to treat Claudius? Gertrude?
3. What does Hamlet make Horatio and Marcellus swear? Why?
ACT II Scene i
1. Why is Ophelia frightened by Hamlet?
2. How does Polonius explain Hamlet’s behavior?
Scene ii
1. Who are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern?
2. Why have they come to Elsinore?
3. Are they betraying their friend Hamlet?
4. How does Hamlet feel about the nature of the world?
5. How can you tell?
6. What is Polonius’s plan for proving that Hamlet’s odd behavior is the result of love madness?
7. What does Hamlet request the traveling players to perform?
8. Why?
ACT III Scene i
1. What do Rosencrantz and Guildenstern report about Hamlet to the King and Queen?
2. Does the King agree with Polonius- that Hamlet suffers from love madness?
3. How does the famous “To be or not to be” speech summarize Hamlet as a character?
4. Does it show that he is decisive or indecisive?
How?
5. Why does Claudius decide to send Hamlet to England?
6. What final plan does Polonius devise in order to reveal the source of Hamlet’s strange behavior?
Scene ii
1. What instructions does Hamlet give Horatio prior to the staging of the play?
2. How does the King react to the play?
3. What does Hamlet mean when he says he will “speak daggers” to his mother?
Scene iii
1. Why does Claudius identify himself with Cain?
2. Does Claudius have a conscience?
3. Why doesn’t Hamlet kill Claudius?
Scene iv
1. Why does Polonius hide behind the Queen’s curtain? Does she know that he is there?
2. Why does Hamlet kill Polonius?
3. Whose portraits does Hamlet show Gertrude? Why?
4. When the Ghost reappears in Gertrude’s room, how does she react? What does the Ghost tell
Hamlet?
5. Why is this significant?
ACT IV Scene i
1. What is the King’s main concern when he finds out that Polonius has been killed?
Scene ii
1. Why does Hamlet agree to go to see Claudius?
Scene iii
1. How does Hamlet act when the king asks him about the location of Polonius’s body?
2. Why do you think he acts this way?
3. What does Claudius want the English ruler to do with Hamlet?
Do Rosencrantz and Guildenstern know that?
Scene iv
1. What does Hamlet learn about Norwegian soldiers when he questions the captain?
2. How is Fortinbras set up as a foil for Hamlet?
Scene v
1. What is Claudius’s theory about why Ophelia is acting so oddly? Is he right?
2. Why does Laertes return from France?
3. How is Laertes set up as a foil for Hamlet?
4. How does Claudius calm down Laertes?
5. What does he promise?
Scene vi
1. How does Hamlet get back to Denmark?
2. How does Horatio find Hamlet?
Scene vii
1. What is the King’s original plan for killing Hamlet?
2. What do the King and Laertes plan to do to make sure Hamlet is “triply” dead?
3. How does Ophelia die?
4. Why is her death fitting for her?
ACT V
Scene i
1. Whose grave are the men digging?
2. Whose skull does Hamlet hold up?
3. What does Hamlet tell Horatio about that person?
4. Why does Laertes complain to the priest?
5. What happens when Hamlet steps out from the place where he and Horatio have been watching the
funeral?
Scene ii
1. How had Hamlet discovered Claudius’s order to have Hamlet beheaded?
2. How did Hamlet see to it that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern would be put to death instead of himself?
3. Did he feel guilty about it?
4. How is Osric set up as comic relief?
5. How does Gertrude die?
6. How does Laertes get mortally wounded?
7. What does he say before he dies?
8. How does Claudius die?
9. How does Hamlet know he is dying?
10. What are his dying wishes?