Act 3
This is an extremely informal, stream-of-consciousness, stenography of our Act 3
discussion…for your entertainment.
Scene 1 – Rose, Guild, and court say they can’t find anything wrong with him
- convo w/ king and rose pelonius and oph
plot to gauge him during convo
- “or not to be”
sad pontification on life bc depressed from dead father, etc.
- oph talks to hamlet – take thee to a nunnery
heap of poly and claud telling her to talk to him to gauge his demeanor for craziness
- Claud’s all “seriously, take him to England”
Is Claudius paranoid about Hamlet’s suspicion or is Ham a reminder or does Claud not
like Hamlet because he’s next in line for the throne?
Poly says Ham’s not that crazy, we should wait and not send him away just yet.
pseudotrigger leading to his own demise
Scene 2 – Ham talks to actors in play
- do it well so Claud feels really bad - trigger
- Ham and Ophelia’s convo – used to show they’re still involved
- Horatio comes after Ham’s talk and Ham asks Horatio to report king’s feeling of the
poisoning scene
Poisoning scene triggers guilt in Claud and Claud leaves
Ham talks with Rose and Guild after play
R&G tell him that Claud is mad at him = trigger for Ham to go and kill him
+ “yo mom wants to see you”
- Ham yells at Gertrude for marrying his father’s murderer
trigger – Gertrude did do just that
Ham and Poly talk – shows they’re not mad at each other
Poly tells Ham his mom wants to see him – later heap = confrontation
Scene 3 – Claud tells Rose and Guild to take him to England
- triggers guilt for later prayer
Claud tells Poly what he did
Claud leaves to pray after talking to Poly
Ham follows Claud and listens to him praying
- no kill, cuz go to heaven
Ham spares Claud for praying
- irony is Claud ends up not being able to pray
Not able to pray bc of guilt from earlier in play.
Scene 4
Poly’s trigger for spying is him wanting Gertrude to want to be hard on him.
- Poly resolves to spy on Ham and Gertrude
- they start yelling and Poly yells
Tigger: Queen line 26 – HELP!  Polonius “Help.”
- Hamlet stabs, thinking it was Claudius
- ghost returns to remind Hamlet about plot to avenge father – Claud’s alive, bro, why?
Ghost trigger for letter discussion. (possible links to other Acts)
- Hamlet tells Gertrude about plan Claudius’ plan to send him to England
- Ham moves Poly’s body while talking to Gertrude
Why does Hamlet drag body out?
- bc Ham killed him and is moving body