Hamlet crit

Question 1

Hamner hamlet could have ended the play

Answer 1

‘There would have been the end to our play’

Question 2

Olivier production

Answer 2

This is the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind

Question 3

Johnson - Hamlet treats Ophelia

Answer 3

treats Ophelia with so much rudeness … useless and wanton cruelty

Question 4

Coleridge - imaginary world

Answer 4

‘disturbed’ by a lack of ‘balance’ between ‘real and imaginary world’

Question 5

schlegel - labyrinths

Answer 5

‘labyrinths of thought’ ‘cripple’ Hamlet from taking action

Question 6

Hazlitt - hamlets thoughts

Answer 6

hamlets thoughts ‘are as real as our own thoughts’

Question 7

AC Bradley - Gertrude

Answer 7

The moral shock of the sudden ghastly disclosure of his mother’s true nature

Question 8

AC Bradley - Ophelia

Answer 8

He can never see Ophelia in the same light again: she is a woman, and his mother is a woman

Question 9

Freud - sinner

Answer 9

no better than the sinner whom he is to punish

Question 10

Jordine - blame

Answer 10

The powerful blame the ‘disadvantaged of all races, genders and sexual preferences’ for their own lack of power

Question 11

Leverenz - Ophelia as instrument

Answer 11

‘Everyone has used her’ her madness is inevitable

Question 12

Massai - misogyny

Answer 12

‘one of the most fiercely misogynistic plays’ ‘Gertrude is the target of this hatred

Question 13

Rutter - psychic journey

Answer 13

Opherlia ‘performs … the psychic journey of Prince Hamlet … Hamlet is thinking about madness; Ophelia plays it for real … Hamlet toys with the idea of suicide; Ophelia commits suicide’

Question 14

Camden - feigned madness

Answer 14

‘Hamlet’s pretend madness is contrasted with the reality of Ophelia’s madness’

Question 15

Charney - liberation of madness

Answer 15

‘her madness … enables her to assert her being; she is no longer enforced to keep silent and play the dutiful daughter’

Question 16

Eagleton - hamlet’s inadequacies

Answer 16

unable to become the ‘chivalric lover, obedient revenger or future king’

Question 17

Shapiro

Answer 17

Old world of ‘chivalry’ fading to a new protestant society with global capitalism

Question 18

Holderness - changing society

Answer 18

Stranded between the two worlds unable to emulate the heroic values of his father, unable to engage with the modern world of political diplomacy’

Question 19

Vives

Answer 19

‘The Education of a Christian Woman’

‘A woman’s only care is chastity’

Question 20

Atlick - corruption

Answer 20

The cunning and lecherousness of Claudius’ evil has corrupted the whole kingdom of Denmark

Question 21

Barton - ghost

Answer 21

the word of an unreliable ghost

Question 22

Vardy - Claudius

Answer 22

is at the heart of this corrupt and oppressive state’

Question 23

Draper - ghost

Answer 23

Any seeming ghost might be a demon

Question 24

Hattaway - hamlet as monster

Answer 24

Hamlet becomes something of a monster, careless of those around him