William Shakespeare’s

 UOh4 UOh4

Theme and Structural Analysis  Opens on a note of darkness and suspicion.  Guards doing their duties joined by Horatio  Ghostly apparition of Hamlet’s father (Old Hamlet)  Horatio is skeptical and has come to see if the vision will reappear.

 Omen of political catastrophe  Denmark is endangered by the prospect of attack by an army of Norway led by Fortinbras.  He is trying to recapture lands lost by his father (Old Hamlet killed him in a battle)  The ghost does not respond to Horatio

Act 1 Scene 2  Public, ceremonial grandeur (contrast to opening scene)  Confidence and formality give impression of success but remember the foreboding previous scene.  King Claudius – Old Hamlet’s brother  Married to Gertrude (Hamlet’s mother) soon after the death of the old king  Politically sends messengers to the king to curb Fortinbras  Laertes is given leave to travel in France.

 Hamlet has recently returned from his studies in Wittenburg in order to attend the funeral and wedding  Sole figure in black  His language is full of puns and double entendres, doesn’t hide how he feels  He agrees to stay in Denmark  At this point he delivers the first of the four great soliloquies  TM TM

 Why do you think these soliloquies are so important?  Hamlet saw his father as a god-like man  He is upset with his mother’s marriage and her willingness to marry Claudius  “Frailty, thy name is women.”  Horatio tells him the news of the ghost and Hamlet agrees to watch with them.