Day: October 21, 2015

This is quite a depressing scene. Ophelia has lost all her sanity because of her fathers death and Laertes is seeking revenge against the person who killed his father. The scene starts off by Ophelia singing about her father’s death to Gertrude. Time after time Ophelia is asked to stop by Gertrude as it makes her upset, but Ophelia never stops. The same happens when Claudius appears. Then a messenger tells the king how Laertes has returned and supporters of his are starting to call him king. Then Laertes bursts into the room and starts telling the king how he is looking for revenge and he is on the brink of killing him. Then Ophelia appears again and starts singing random things again and Laertes says that her insanity speaks more true words than a sane person. Finally, Claudius gets Laertes to reason with him by saying that he will give up his kingdom and his life if he is wrong, but he’ll tell Laertes who killed Polonius as long as he listens to him. They then all exit.

During this very short scene, troops from Norway lead by Fortinbras, are waiting for permission by the Danish King (Claudius) to move across Denmark so they can invade Poland. Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern enter with a few others and start talking to the captain about the invasion. The captain explains that they are invading a small useless part of Poland, that will bring almost no money into Norway what so ever. The captain doesn’t even agree with the invasion. Once everybody leaves, Hamlet is left by himself. Hamlet starts talking about how these 20,000 soldiers are marching to their death (although its a useless piece of land, Poland is still going to defend it) and he can’t even muster up the courage to kill Claudius. Hamlet concludes the scene by saying that if his thoughts are not violent, he will considering them worthless.

This scene is quite tense as it is where Claudius asks Hamlet where Polonius’s body is buried. Hamlet goes onto to say that Claudius should send a messenger to heaven to see if he is there. If Polonius is not there then Hamlet tells Claudius to go and visit hell himself to see if Polonius is there. Hamlet then goes onto to say that Polonius has gone to dinner (by this he means that Polonius’s body is feeding the worms). This confuses Claudius as he is not as intelligent as Hamlet. Hamlet then tells Claudius that he better find him soon otherwise he’ll be smelling him as he goes up the stairs to the main hall. Claudius then sends his servants off to retrieve the body. Claudius then tells Hamlet that he is going off to England, and Hamlet agrees happily. Once everyone has left, Claudius talks to himself about how the King of England needs to kill Hamlet. Otherwise, Claudius will never rest easy, knowing that Hamlet is still out there.