ACT I SCENE II
-Each scene must include a “critical quote” and a detailed explanation about why the quote is significant to a character’s development, action, thematic concerns or symbolic issues. Be sure to include the line numbers and who said it.
"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! O God, God!
5 How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on ’t, ah fie! 'Tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this.
10 But two months dead—nay, not so much, not two.
So excellent a king, that was to this
Hyperion to a satyr. So loving to my mother
heaven
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly.—Heaven and earth,
15 Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on, and yet, within a month—
Let me not think on ’t. Frailty, thy name is woman!—
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
20 With which she followed my poor father’s body,
Like Niobe, all tears. Why she, even she—
O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason
Would have mourned longer!—married with my uncle,
My father’s brother, but no more like my father
25 Than I to Hercules. Within a month,
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her gallèd eyes,
She married. O most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
30 It is not nor it cannot come to good,
But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue".
-Hamlet
Hamlet comes back from Wittenberg for his father's funeral, then surprisingly also there to celebrate his mother's wedding. He feels hatred towards the two, the Queen and Claudius. He said this quote in a room in the castle while he watch his mother run to the King, Claudius. He is disgusted with the world and have suicidal thoughts, would be a better decision than to live with them (1-5). He talks about how his mother was so in love with the King yet she gets married after a month of his death (11-14). He compares his dad as a great man to his low life uncle. Hyperion is a great, strong Titan, while Satyr is a goat looking, ugly, and lustful person (11). Hamlet compares the Queen's sadness to Niobe, who lost all her kids due to her arrogance and cried a lot, but within a month, she got married to the late King's brother. (21). He also questions the Queen's thoughts of marrying someone lower than his father. Therefore, he have this hatred towards the Queen for not mourning long enough for the husband she once loved and to his uncle who got married to the Queen, his brother's wife, not a month after his brother's death. He feels frustrated oh how happy they are after mourning for the dead and how quickly they turned their backs from their great King Hamlet. He will use this to avenge his father's death and fix their wrongdoings.
-Discuss the relationship between two characters. The comments can be directed towards family relationships, romantic relationships, subject/sovereign relationships, political relationships, and friendships. Are they foil characters? What U.T. could these relationships support?
This relationship is none other than the hatred between Claudius and Hamlet. They are relatives, Hamlet's uncle is Claudius and the younger brother of his father, which later on Claudius is crowned to the throne after the King's death. The U.T of their relationship support is revenge because Hamlet wants to avenge for his father's death. In scene II, it talked about how he hated the idea of their marriage and how the mom moved on quickly when he loved Hamlet's father so much.
King: How is it that clouds still hang on you?
Hamlet: Not so, my lord; I am too much I' the sun
This is a line from scene 2 where Hamlet uses a pun when Claudius ask him to why he is still mourning for his father's death. Hamlet's play on words is quite clever since he uses the word sun for the meaning "son" for his new stepfather. The jokes is on Claudius since he is the new King and Hamlet's stepfather. Therefore, their relationship will be improved once things get situated and the truths will be set free.
Discuss a reference to seeming versus being.
This means that a character has an outer appearance of a kind person, but in reality they are nefarious. One character that goes by this is Claudius, the new King. When he is making his speech to the people about his brother's death and his upcoming marriage. He starts his speech with these lines, "Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death. The memory be great and that it is befitted. To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom".
The King is referring to why Hamlet is still mourning for his father's death, but Hamlet replies to him that he is uncomfortable of being his son and he can't be more than just a nephew to the King. Hamlet replies with a fun with he uses the sun as son, which is very clever. Another line from the same scene that shows his dislike of his uncle turned stepfather.
"A little more than kin, and less than kind".
Hamlet is basically telling him that he is now his step father, but he can never be a step father to him. Claudius doesn't want Hamlet to leave and set him up to be the heir to the throne, so he can use him for his advantage. By doing this, he strengthens his position as the King and he tells Hamlet to obey his rules. This gives the King the power and to let Hamlet know that he is in charge. Therefore, the King is nefarious and heinous.
