Identity/Character Questions

Question 1

Hamlet’s excessive thought is to blame for his downfall. To what extent do you agree with this interpretation of Hamlet’s character?

Hamlet’s failure to react in a timely manner is responsible for the carnage. To what extent do you agree with this interpretation of Hamlet’s character?

The idea that procrastination is Hamlet’s fatal flaw is unfair. To what extent do you agree with this interpretation?

Answer 1

Hamlet’s excessive thought is largely the cause of his downfall, however, his quest for revenge is also partly to blame.

Hamlet’s overthinking is to blame for his downfall:
Blest are those / Whose blood and judgement are so well commingled. That they are not a pipe for for fortune’s finger / To sound what stop she please
The native hue of resolution/Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought

Hamlet’s overthinking is to blame for his downfall:
Thy commandment all alone shall live within the book and volume of my brain
From this time forth my thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth

Hamlet’s quest for revenge is to blame for his downfall:
Now could I drink hot blood and do such bitter business as the day would quake to look on
Spur my dull revenge

Question 2

The Ghost has little influence over Hamlet’s decisions. To what extent do you agree with this interpretation?

Hamlet’s sense of himself is shaped by his family. To what extent do you agree with this interpretation?

Answer 2

Due to Hamlet’s rigid filial duty, the Ghost has great influence over Hamlet’s decisions/self-perception.

?
Out of my weakness and melancholy, as he is very potent with such spirits, abuses me to damn me.

Thy commandment all alone shall live within the book and volume of my brain
From this time forth my thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth

Pigeon liver’d and lack gall
Muddy mettled rascal

Hamlet’s sense of himself is largely shaped by his family.
Shaped by father (masculinity):
Hyperion to a satyr
My father’s brother, but no more like my father than I to Hercules

Shaped by father (revenge):
Pigeon liver’d and lack gall
Muddy mettled rascal

Shaped by mother (deception):
‘Tis the sport to have the enginer hoist with his own petard
God hath given you one face and you make yourselves another

Question 3

Hamlet’s treatment of the women in his life is cruel. To what extent do you agree with this interpretation?

Answer 3

Hamlet’s treatment of the women in his life is wholly cruel.

Imagery of beasts:
A beast that wants discourse of reason would have mourn’d longer
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, stewed in corruption, honeying and making love over the nasty sty

Imagery of blades:
I will speak daggers to her but use none
It would cost you a groaning to take off mine edge

Assumption of women’s deception:
Makes marriage vows as false as dicers’ oaths
God hath given you one face and you make yourselves another

Question 4

Hamlet is not to blame for the negative consequences that follow his father’s death. To what extent do you agree with this interpretation?

Answer 4

Pre-existing corruption in Denmark:
‘Tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature possess it merely.

Claudius’ regicide responsible for negative consequences:
Leperous distillment
O, my offence is rank it smells to heaven; it hath the primal eldest curse upon’t

Hamlet’s inaction responsible for consequences:
This physic but prolongs thy sickly days
The native hue of resolution/Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought

Question 5

Hamlet is a sympathetic character. To what extent do you agree with this interpretation?

Answer 5

While Hamlet’s self-criticism makes him somewhat of a sympathetic character, his treatment of women renders him largely unsympathetic.

O what a rogue and peasant slave am I
Pigeon liver’d and lack gall

A beast that wants discourse of reason would have mourn’d longer
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, stewed in corruption, honeying and making love over the nasty sty

I will speak daggers to her but use none
It would cost you a groaning to take off mine edge

Question 6

Hamlet would have made a good King. To what extent do you agree with this interpretation?

Answer 6

Self-criticism would not:
O what a rogue and peasant slave am I
Pigeon liver’d and lack

Cruelty to women would not or procrastination would not.

Awareness/condemnation of deception would:
‘Tis the sport to have the enginer hoist with his own petard
Makes marriage vows as false as dicer’s oaths

Question 7

Ophelia describes Hamlet as ‘a noble mind here overthrown’. To what extent do you agree with this interpretation?