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Hamlet Act 1 Analysis

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1. The first 8 lines of Hamlet, Act 1, Scene One, are unusual because it sets the stage for the entire play and it begins with questioning and uncertainty caused by the darkness of the night. This questioning continues throughout the play.
2. In lines 67 – 223 of Hamlet, Act 5, Scene One, Hamlet speaks to a gravedigger who has no idea who he is. He asks questions about fate and death, while the men sing and cracks jokes. The scene is puzzling because their views towards death were so different. When speaking to the man, Hamlet seems to realize death is inevitable. Everyone dies, even the greatest kings.
3. In line 39-91, Act 1, Scene One, of King Lear, the King has decided to split his land and power between his three daughters because he …show more content…

Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Horatio are all school friends of Hamlet. However, Horatio is the only true friend that Hamlet has. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are called in by King Claudius to keep an eye on Hamlet and to find out the reason for the change in his behavior. They are used to provide information to the King, who in turn uses that information to try to get rid of him. They are pawns in a game they have no idea is going on. Horatio is different. He is aware of everything around him. He is the honest and loyal friend. His relationship with Hamlet is important because we are able to understand Hamlet from an outside …show more content…

He realizes all the extra things in life do not matter; all that is necessary is love. If he had been able to recognize what love looked like, he would have known that Cordelia was the daughter who loved him the most. Gloucester believes in the stars. He could not see what was going on around him, how Edgar had been that was actually plotting against him. Even when he could have gone to Edmund to seek the truth, he did not. Instead, he believed in his stars and that the events of his life were due to fate. Edgar believes his father’s view on life is evasive, it allows him to let go of all responsibility for things that go wrong. His father was an adulterer. He fathered Edmund by his own actions and is now paying the price of having him for a son. Hamlet believes in God and believes that suicide is a sin. He believes in fate and that God, like he takes the sparrow, will take him when he it is his time. This can also explain why he took so long to avenge his father’s murder. He had to make sure everything was ready and he looked at every possible angle. He is uncertain for a long time when the right time

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457 Words | 2 Pages

He has a choice to make, so he has to decide if living is worth living and if it is how he will deal with the situation that he has. Hamlet was conflicted he didn 't understand the value of his life in that exact moment. In Hamlets soliloquy the was thinking about the pro and cons of wether to end his life or deal with the problem that his dead father brought to him. He was starting to come to a decision when he’s thoughts were interrupted. This soliloquy brought to light the peoples that most people go through or think about.

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1436 Words | 6 Pages

Additionally, in scene two act III the scene that may have any effect on the direction of the play is the introduction of the Ghost appearing to Hamlet and telling him that Claudius his uncle and brother to his father killed the king father to Hamlet and asks him to revenge his death. This makes Hamlet to distrust almost everybody around him except Horatio his close friend. From the scene, Rosencrantz asks “Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? you 338   do, surely, bar the door upon your own liberty, if   you deny your griefs to your friend.”. Hamlet “340   Sir, I lack advancement.”

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484 Words | 2 Pages

Horatio was not only someone he grew up with but he was the one person in his life that he had his faith in 100 percent. Everyone in both Holdens and Hamlets lives have disappointed them in one way or another, but both had that one person who they looked up to. For Holden it was his younger brother Allie, for Hamlet it was Horatio. Both of these males had characteristics about them that caused Hamlet and Holden to set them above everyone else. The only difference between Allie and Horatio, is that Allie is dead.

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1112 Words | 5 Pages

Hamlet rests in peace in his death, having got what he wanted. Although he does not live to see it, the society had got a different leadership which was free of malicious people like Claudius. The play is not a comedy where the hero lives. In Hamlet, the hero dies but he dies a hero having achieved his goal and the reason why he was called.

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1511 Words | 7 Pages

There was nobody that Hamlet could fully trust, with the exception of Horatio. In addition to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern spying on him for the king, Polonius, Claudius and Ophelia were all contributors to spying on Hamlet’s conversation with Ophelia. Also, Gertrude is disloyal to Hamlet’s father and may have had an affair with Claudius which makes her another character that Hamlet cannot trust. Horatio is the only person in the play that Hamlet trusts, the one who gives Hamlet the most companionship, and most importantly the only friend of Hamlet to help Hamlet. He understands Hamlet the most, believed that Hamlet’s madness is an act, and is the closest thing to true ‘family’ that Hamlet has if we consider the internal conflicts of the royal family.

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758 Words | 4 Pages

The second set of characters, Hamlet and Horatio, have different personalities from each other and also from the first set of characters. Horatio is calm and reasonable. Hamlet is idealistic and conscientious, but starts changing throughout the play. These characters are loyal to each other. Like the first set of characters they are also aiming towards the same goal but have different

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240 Words | 1 Pages

Specific show as the relationship between Hamlet and Horatio. Horatio plays an only one true confidant role for Hamlet in the play. The only true companion of Hamlet is Horatio. Everyone else, for example, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Claudius, all are not totally faithful to Hamlet. Aside from Hamlet's soliloquies, his discussions with Horatio is the only way that show what is the truly considering and feeling of Hamlet.

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689 Words | 3 Pages

Horatio is loyal It is hard to find the right friend to tell them all your secrets, thoughts, being able to have deep conversations and be able to trust them with your heart. This statement is acceded towards the character Horatio from the play Hamlet by William Shakespheare. Horatio is the person that everyone wants and will do anything for the people he loves. In the book Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Horatio is presented to us as an utterly dependable, well educated, accepting and calm person throughout the play of Hamlet by William Shakespheare.

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787 Words | 4 Pages

Hamlet’s loyal friend Horatio Many of the Shakespeare's characters are scattered with a long trails of sin and misfortune, in Hamlet, Denmark's prince, Hamlet is set to seek the revenge of his father's murder. With the guidance of his father's ghost , Hamlet begins acting out in lunacy to appear inconspicuous, plots for his uncle Claudius’ demise by enacting a play to seek out the new kings guiltiness. With all of Hamlet's bouts of depression, lunacy and anger, Horatio, a scholar, acts as a loyal follower and true friend. Hamlet not even being able to trust his mother takes Horatio's loyalty seriously, making him the only person he can completely rely on and honestly talk to.

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970 Words | 4 Pages

Later in the play, Horatio reveals his loyalty to Hamlet, but it is not clear the stance of

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584 Words | 3 Pages

Horatio is one of Hamlet 's greatest friends in the play. We know this because of lines I.ii.160-164. We see how Hamlet values his friend Horatio. Even though Horatio is technically a lower class then Hamlet is, he still treats Horatio as though they are on the same level of class (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu)He is the one person in the play that Hamlet puts his complete trust in. We know this because of the following quote “How strange or odd some’er I bear myself (As I perchance hereafter shall think meet To put an antic disposition on)”

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1431 Words | 6 Pages

Hamlet’s two very best childhood friends who turned on him at his darkest hour in hopes of being in good graces with the criminal King played a supporting role in Hamlet to aid in setting up Claudius’s master plans. When Rosenkrantz is sent to find out what is troubling Hamlet, obviously besides the death of his father and his uncle’s unsettling relationship with his mother, Rosenkrantz loses any trust that Hamlet once had in him as he inquires, “How can that be, when you have the voice of the King himself for your succession in Denmark?” (III, II). The concern for the throne rather than his friend seals his fate as Hamlet unapologetically states, “They are not near my conscience. Their defeat Does by their insinuation grow” (V, II).

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1533 Words | 7 Pages

Death is one of the most prominent themes in Hamlet, appearing in different forms. Shakespeare displays death through the suicide of Ophelia, Hamlet’s own thoughts and eventual suicide, and the murder of King Hamlet and Polonius. Hamlet displays suicidal tendencies throughout the play through his soliloquies. The first time that Hamlet contemplates committing suicide is when Gertrude and Claudius tell him that he has to stay in Denmark in Act one. “Oh, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew, or that the Everlasting had not fixed his canon ‘gainst self-slaughter!

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1274 Words | 6 Pages

In an article titled “Horatio’s ‘Let Me Speak’: Narrative Summary and Summary Narrative in Hamlet,” David Thatcher states, “A major problem concerning Horatio is the extent of knowledge he possesses or can be assumed to possess” (Thatcher). With Hamlet and Horatio’s strong friendship, Horatio can be considered one sided or biased towards the situation. This is a major problem when it comes to Horatio’s knowledge of the events occurring in Hamlet’s life. One could consider that Horatio may be blinded by the information that Hamlet tells Horatio just considering the fact that they are best friends. Hamlet uses this strong friendship to turn Horatio against multiple enemies of Hamlet, leaving Horatio at a disadvantage.

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1052 Words | 5 Pages

His respect for Horatio parallels the reverence Hamlet once held for his father. On the other side of the relationship, Horatio displays how much he cares by giving advice to Hamlet multiple times. He is one of the only characters who tells Hamlet what he really thinks. By giving Hamlet advice, even if he does not listen, Horatio displays the affection of a father. By having different levels of status Horatio and Hamlet maintain the respect shared between a father and son.

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