Hamlet Act 2 Analysis

Act 2 opens with Polonius giving instructions to Reynaldo before he leaves for France. The instructions are clear, Polonius wants him to no only deliver leters and money to Laertes his son but to also figure out exactly what Laertes it is doing. In an attempt to hide the fact from his son, Polonius instructs Reynaldo to go about it quietly, spying on his son and reporting back to him without alerting Laertes. This exchange sets the stage of an act filled with spying, deceit, and trickery. Most of act 2 follows the characters attepts to spy on one another. Starting with Polonius spying on his son soon we see that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Hamlets school mates, has been instructed by Claudius to spy on Hamlet and discover the origin of

If we skip to the end of the play we see a stage covered in the dead bodies of just about every character in the play. From Claudius to Hamlet himself every person that based their actions on revenge ends up having revenge taken on them as well. Looking at this we can guess that Shakespeare was extremely critical to say the least of revenge. No matter who you extract your revenge on they will always have a vengeful relative ready to take up arms in their defense. The play makes clear that taking revenge upon ones self never brings peace, but only furthers the chain of

Claudius makes a somewhat ironic statement, “by our late dear brother's death our state to be disjoint and out of frame” (1.2.19-20). His brother was no dearer to him then a rabbit is to a fox and the “disjoint” came from Claudius ignoring his kingly duties and uprooting the kingdom. Despite his drinking and partying Claudius does sense danger, but not from Denmark. Instead Claudius sees the danger in his nephew and is worried that Hamlet will learn the truth and raise a army to retake his rightful throne. Because of this Claudius seeks to keep Hamlet close to keep an eye on him. Despite keeping a close eye on all of Hamlets actions Claudius still perishes. We see Hamlets sanity decreasing throughout the play. What starts out as rightful mourning soon turns to deep dark depression causing him to see the world as “weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable” (1.2.133). One might guess that the death of his father is what's causing the grief in Hamlets life, but instead we learn that it is in fact the marriage of his mother. It had been barely two months before Gertrude was married to Claudius, a incestuous marriage to boot. Hamlet is struck with guilt, feeling as though he could have done something to prevent the marriage. As we see this is just one of the contributing factors to Hamlet's decent into