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1、.,1,Hamlet,William Shakespeare,.,2,Publication,Written during the first part of the seventeenth century (probably in 1600 or 1601), Hamlet was probably first performed in July 1602. It was first published in printed form in 1603 and appeared in an enlarged edition in 1604.,.,3,Setting,The story take
2、s place in the country of Denmark in the late medieval period.,.,4,The Story,The raw material that Shakespeare appropriated in writing Hamlet is the story of a Danish prince whose uncle murders the princes father, marries his mother, and claims the throne. The prince pretends to be feeble-minded to
3、throw his uncle off guard, then manages to kill his uncle in revenge.,.,5,Hamlet,The Prince of Denmark, the title character, and the protagonist. About thirty years old at the start of the play, Hamlet is the son of Queen Gertrude and the late King Hamlet, and the nephew of the present king, Claudiu
4、s.,.,6,Hamlet continued,Hamlet is melancholy, bitter, and cynical, full of hatred for his uncles scheming and disgust for his mothers sexuality. A reflective and thoughtful young man who has studied at the University of Wittenberg, Hamlet is sometimes indecisive and hesitant, but at other times pron
5、e to rash and impulsive acts.,.,7,Claudius,The King of Denmark, Hamlets uncle, and the plays antagonist. The villain of the play, Claudius is a calculating, ambitious politician, driven by his sexual appetites and his lust for power, but he occasionally shows signs of guilt and human feelinghis love
6、 for Gertrude, for instance, seems sincere.,.,8,Gertrude,The Queen of Denmark, Hamlets mother, recently married to Claudius. Gertrude loves Hamlet deeply, but she is a shallow, weak woman who seeks affection and status more urgently than moral rectitude or truth.,.,9,Polonius,The Lord Chamberlain of
7、 Claudiuss court, a pompous, conniving old man. Polonius is the father of Laertes and Ophelia.,.,10,Horatio,Hamlets close friend, who studied with the prince at the university in Wittenberg. Horatio is loyal and helpful to Hamlet throughout the play. After Hamlets death, Horatio remains alive to tel
8、l Hamlets story.,.,11,Ophelia,Poloniuss daughter, a beautiful young woman with whom Hamlet has been in love. Ophelia is a sweet and innocent young girl, who obeys her father and her brother, Laertes.,.,12,Ophelia continued,Dependent on men to tell her how to behave, she gives in to Poloniuss schemes
9、 to spy on Hamlet. Even in her lapse into madness and death, she remains maidenly, singing songs about flowers and finally drowning in the river amid the flower garlands she had gathered.,.,13,Laertes,Poloniuss son and Ophelias brother, a young man who spends much of the play in France. Passionate a
10、nd quick to action, Laertes is clearly a foil for the reflective Hamlet.,.,14,Fortinbras,The young Prince of Norway, whose father the king (also named Fortinbras) was killed by Hamlets father (also named Hamlet). Now Fortinbras wishes to attack Denmark to avenge his fathers honor, making him another
11、 foil for Prince Hamlet.,.,15,The Ghost,The specter of Hamlets recently deceased father. The ghost, who claims to have been murdered by Claudius, calls upon Hamlet to avenge him.,.,16,The Ghost continued,It is not entirely certain whether the ghost is what it appears to be, or whether it is somethin
12、g else. Hamlet speculates that the ghost might be a devil sent to deceive him and tempt him into murder, and the question of what the ghost is or where it comes from is never definitively resolved.,.,17,Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,Two slightly bumbling courtiers, former friends of Hamlet from Witte
13、nberg, who are summoned by Claudius and Gertrude to discover the cause of Hamlets strange behavior.,.,18,Themes,Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.,.,19,Theme of Certainty,What separates Hamlet from other revenge plays (and maybe from every play written
14、before it) is that the action we expect to see, particularly from Hamlet himself, is continually postponed while Hamlet tries to obtain more certain knowledge about what he is doing. This play poses many questions that other plays would simply take for granted.,.,20,Questions,Can we have certain kno
15、wledge about ghosts? Is the ghost what it appears to be, or is it really a misleading fiend? Does the ghost have reliable knowledge about its own death, or is the ghost itself deluded?,.,21,More Questions,Moving to more earthly matters: How can we know for certain the facts about a crime that has no
16、 witnesses? Can Hamlet know the state of Claudiuss soul by watching his behavior? If so, can he know the facts of what Claudius did by observing the state of his soul? Can Claudius (or the audience) know the state of Hamlets mind by observing his behavior and listening to his speech? Can we know whe
17、ther our actions will have the consequences we want them to have? Can we know anything about the afterlife?,.,22,Uncertainty,Many people have seen Hamlet as a play about indecisiveness, and thus about Hamlets failure to act appropriately. It might be more interesting to consider that the play shows
18、us how many uncertainties our lives are built upon, how many unknown quantities are taken for granted when people act or when they evaluate one anothers actions.,.,23,Theme of Action,Directly related to the theme of certainty is the theme of action. How is it possible to take reasonable, effective,
19、purposeful action? In Hamlet, the question of how to act is affected not only by rational considerations, such as the need for certainty, but also by emotional, ethical, and psychological factors.,.,24,Acting Recklessly,Hamlet himself appears to distrust the idea that its even possible to act in a c
20、ontrolled, purposeful way. When he does act, he prefers to do it blindly, recklessly, and violently. The other characters obviously think much less about action in the abstract than Hamlet does, and are therefore less troubled about the possibility of acting effectively. They simply act as they feel
21、 is appropriate. But in some sense they prove that Hamlet is right, because all of their actions miscarry.,.,25,Acting Foolishly,Claudius possesses himself of queen and crown through bold action, but his conscience torments him, and he is beset by threats to his authority (and, of course, he dies).
22、Laertes resolves that nothing will distract him from acting out his revenge, but he is easily influenced and manipulated into serving Claudiuss ends, and his poisoned sword is turned back upon himself.,.,26,Death,In the aftermath of his fathers murder, Hamlet is obsessed with the idea of death, and
23、over the course of the play he considers death from a great many perspectives.,.,27,Aftermath of Death,Hamlet ponders both the spiritual aftermath of death, embodied in the ghost, and the physical remainders of the dead, such as by Yoricks skull and the decaying corpses in the cemetery. Throughout,
24、the idea of death is closely tied to the themes of spirituality, truth, and uncertainty in that death may bring the answers to Hamlets deepest questions, ending once and for all the problem of trying to determine truth in an ambiguous world.,.,28,Revenge,Since death is both the cause and the consequ
25、ence of revenge, it is intimately tied to the theme of revenge and justiceClaudiuss murder of King Hamlet initiates Hamlets quest for revenge, and Claudiuss death is the end of that quest.,.,29,Suicide,The question of his own death plagues Hamlet as well, as he repeatedly contemplates whether or not
26、 suicide is a morally legitimate action in an unbearably painful world. Hamlets grief and misery is such that he frequently longs for death to end to his suffering, but he fears that if he commits suicide, he will be consigned to eternal suffering in hell because of the Christian religions prohibiti
27、on of suicide.,.,30,“To be or not to be”,In his famous To be or not to be soliloquy, Hamlet philosophically concludes that no one would choose to endure the pain of life if he or she were not afraid of what will come after death, and that it is this fear which causes complex moral considerations to
28、interfere with the capacity for action.,.,31,Motifs,Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the texts major themes.,.,32,Motif of Misogyny,Shattered by his mothers repugnant decision to marry Claudius so soon after her husbands death, Hamle
29、t becomes extremely cynical, even neurotic, about women in general, showing a particular obsession with what he perceives to be a connection between female sexuality and moral corruption.,.,33,“Frailty, thy name is woman”,This motif of misogyny, or hatred of women, occurs only sporadically throughou
30、t the play, but it is an important inhibiting factor in Hamlets relationships with Ophelia and Gertrude. He urges Ophelia to go to a nunnery rather than experience the corruptions of sexuality and exclaims of Gertrude, Frailty, thy name is woman,.,34,Motif of Ears and Hearing,One facet of Hamlets ex
31、ploration of the difficulty of attaining true knowledge is slipperiness of language. Words are used to communicate ideas, but they can also be used to distort the truth, manipulate other people, and serve as tools in corrupt quests for power. Claudius, the shrewd politician, is the most obvious exam
32、ple of a man who manipulates words to enhance his own power.,.,35,Use of Words,The sinister uses of words are represented by images of ears and hearing, from Claudiuss murder of the king by pouring poison into his ear to Hamlets claim to Horatio that I have words to speak in thine ear will make thee
33、 dumb. The poison poured in the kings ear by Claudius is used by the ghost to symbolize the corrosive effect of Claudiuss dishonesty on the health of Denmark. Declaring that the story that he was killed by a snake is a lie, he says that the whole ear of Denmark is Rankly abused.,.,36,Symbols,Symbols
34、 are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.,.,37,Yoricks Skull,Hamlet is not a particularly symbolic play, at least in the sense that physical objects are rarely used to represent thematic ideas. One important exception is Yoricks skull, which Hamlet di
35、scovers in the graveyard in the first scene of Act V.,.,38,Different Aspects of Death,As Hamlet speaks to and about the skull of the kings former jester, it becomes a symbol of several different aspects of death, including its inevitability and its disintegration of the body. Hamlet urges the skull
36、to get you to my ladys chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favor she must comeno one can avoid death. He also traces the skulls mouth and says, Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft, indicating his fascination with the physical consequences of death.,.,39
37、,Decay of the Human Body,This latter idea is an important motif throughout the play, as Hamlet frequently makes comments referring to every human bodys eventual decay, noting that Polonius will be eaten by worms, that even kings are eaten by worms, and that dust from the decayed body of Alexander the Great might be used to stop a hole in a beer barrel.,.,40,The End,