Hamlet Act 1.Scene 3-5 Discussion Qs
Directions: Answer the following questions on a separate sheet of paper in complete sentences. When the question
requires text evidence, cite the act, scene, and line number (EX: 1.3.11-15).
ACT 1, Scene 3
#1 – (1.2.244-248) Hamlet states, “All is not well./I doubt some foul play”.
What does this statement mean?
What does it foreshadow?
#2 – (1.3.5-24) What is Laertes’s attitude toward Ophelia? Text evidence.
#3 - (1.3.5-24) What reasons does Laertes give Ophelia for not trusting Hamlet’s love? Text evidence.
#4 – Read 1.3.33-38.
Passage
33 Fear it, Ophelia; fear it, my dear sister,
And keep you in the rear of your affection,
35 Out of the shot and danger of desire
The chariest maid is prodigal enough
If she unmask her beauty to the mood.
38 Virtue itself ‘scapes not calumnious strokes
Paraphrase
#5 – (1.3.65-81) What is the purpose of Polonius’s speech to Laertes?
#6 – (1.3.132-137) Using your prior knowledge of human nature, infer what ultimatum Polonius delivers to Opehlia?
Based on what Ophelia has previously said about Hamlet, what emotions might her statement in line 137 conceal?
ACT 1, Scene 4
#1 – (1.4.9-13)
What was your first impression of Claudius from
Scene 2? Text Evidence
What is your (and Hamlet’s) impression of the King
in Scene 4, lines 9-13? Text Evidence
#2 – This is the first time that Hamlet meets his father’s ghost. Paraphrase his 1 st soliloquy:
HAMLET
Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou comest in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee. I’ll call thee “Hamlet,”
“King,” “Father,” “royal Dane.” O, answer me!
Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell
Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements; why the sepulcher,
Wherein we saw thee quietly interred,
Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws
To cast thee up again. What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel
Revisits thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous and we fools of nature,
So horridly to shake our disposition
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?
#2 – (1.4.66-80) Explain what Hamlet wants in these lines. What motivates him?
Horatio does not want the same thing that Hamlet wants. Why not? Text Evidence
#3 – (1.4.82-89) Describe the conflict between Horatio & Hamlet.
What does Hamlet’s behavior make Horatio fear?
ACT 1, Scene 5
#1 – (1.5.1-24) What does the Ghost say his ultimate destination is? Why?
How does the information that the Ghost reveals influence the audience’s impression of Hamlet’s father?
What mood is created by the words of the Ghost? Provide at least two lines of evidence of the mood.
Mood:
1.
2.
#2 – (1.5.35-71) Explain how the King’s actual death is different than what was explained.
What animal does the Ghost compare Claudius to?
Is this a good comparison? Why/Why not?
#3 – (1.5.85-89) What does the Ghost ask Hamlet to do about his mother?
Why might it be hard for Hamlet to obey his father’s wish that he not punish his mother?
#4 – (1.5.106-110) Reread Hamlet’s oath carefully. Identify one thing that Hamlet says that runs counter to what the
Ghost asked of him. Text Evidence.
#5 – (1.5.148-170) Infer why Hamlet doesn’t tell the others what the Ghost has told him and why he swears to silence.
What evidence from this passage proves that it is only Hamlet who hears the Ghost?
What line in this passage shows that Horatio is concerned about Hamlet?
#6 – (1.5.174-185) Dramatic Irony involves a situation in which the audience knows more than what one or more of
the characters know. What do we (the audience), Hamlet, and his friends know about Hamlet’s future behavior?
What does the audience know about this situation that Hamlet’s friends do not know?