Hamlet William Shakespeare

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Hamlet William Shakespeare

• AP Literature
• K. Matteson

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Agree or Disagree?

• Power Corrupts.

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Agree or Disagree?

• Revenge is the only way to gain true justice.

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Agree or Disagree?

• A person's immoral choices typically come back
  to haunt him/her. 

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Agree or Disagree?

• A person has to confront death in order to
  understand life's meaning.

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Agree or Disagree?

• Regardless of their actions, you should always be
  loyal to family members.

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Agree or Disagree?

• This above all to thine own self be true
• Polonius Act I Sc. iii

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Hamlet

• Son of a murdered Danish king and nephew of
  present king (Claudius).
• Suffers mental anguish over death of his father,
  marriage of his mother to his uncle
• Torn by desire to enact revenge and his moral
  sense of right and wrong

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• Claudius
• King of Denmark, Hamlets uncle
• Becomes King after Hamlets fathers death
• Hamlet suspects him of the murder
• Gertrude
• Queen of Denmark Hamlets mother and widow of
  the former king
• Her marriage to Claudius within two months of her
  husbands death troubles Hamletduh.

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Ophelia

• Daughter of Polonius
• Loves Hamlet but his rejection of her during his
  feigned madness causes a pathological reaction,
  I.e. she gets a little nutty

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Minor Characters

• Polonius butt-kissing Lord Chamberlain of King
  Claudius
• Horatio Hamlets best friend - remains loyal to
  Hamlet to the end, Good night, sweet prince

• Laertes Ophelias brother. His impulsiveness
  makes him Hamlets foil.
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern friends of Hamlet
  from school. They work as spies for the King -
  Hamlet is quick to smell out their treachery

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Setting

• Most of the play takes place in Elsinore Castle
  in Eastern Denmark.
• Some action takes place in the following places
• A plain in Denmark
• A graveyard near Elsinore
• A ship bound for England from Denmark (offstage)

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Themes

• Hamlets inability to act (paralysis)
• Corruption based on inherited sin (More Cain and
  Abel)
• Revenge as Redemption
• loyalty vs. doubt
• Madness under the mask of sanity
• The Meaninglessness of existence

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• Ambition is so powerful a passion in the human
  breast, that however high we reach we are never
  satisfied.
• -Machiavelli

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Without Further Ado

• I Give you Hamlet