1. Appearance vs reality Hamlet
In the play, “Hamlet”, by William Shakespeare, the continuous concealment of reality leads to the progressive darkening of the characters and the play as a whole.
By Jorge Cervantes
Sarah Chacon

2. Mental illness and grief
Hamlet
Mental illness and grief

3. Appearance vs reality Hamlet
Grieving son
Rages over the new King and his mother’s lack of loyalty
Uses this cover to hide how he is self-conflicted
Mental illness
To cover his rage and isolate himself
Is sane
Hamlet no longer trusts Gertrude, Claudius, Rosencrantz or Guildenstern/Raging and lost as to what to do
(eventually plots Claudius’s demise)

4. Hamlet’s mental illness and grief
APPEARANCE
Hamlet “Seems madam? Nay, it is. I know not seem. ‘Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspiration of forced breath …Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, that can denote me truly.”Act
Sadowski :
“”When challenged or questioned, he resorts to buffoonery and to cryptic, evasive riddles and puns , which serve no immediate purpose (such as evidence gathering, for example) beyond beguiling and confusing his interlocutors as to his state of mind.”

5. Appearance vs Reality Hamlet
Madness
Uses madness to see true intentions of people
Alone
Isolates because of his lack of trust
Heroic
Feeble, unable to act

6. Appearance vs reality Hamlet
Unloving (Ophelia)
Still has affections
Witty (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern)
Self-conflicted

7. Hamlet’s internal struggle
Hamlet struggles to find his own inner reality by questioning himself in several instances
(Act )
He also searches for evidence of Claudius’s reality as well as his mothers
He becomes unable to act although he seeks to avenge his fathers death

9. Hamlet’s Mental Illness and Grief
Reality
Hamlet [Aside] A little more than kin, and less than kind
Hamlet (soliloquy) O that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw and resolve itself into a dew, His canon ‘gainst self slaughter… But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.
Hamlet Meet it is I set it don That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain – At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark

10. Hamlet’s mental illness and grief
Progression
Hamlet there is a kind of confession in your looks, which your modesties have to craft enough to colour.
Act Hamlet is talking to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Traversi “Hamlet brings to light a state of disease in “Denmark”– the “world” of the play-which affects the entire field presented to his consciousness;

11. Hamlet’s mental illness and grief
Why and How?
Asides Act ; Act 5.2.
The effects of situational instances
The Progression of appearance and reality
Hamlet
One confident
Worsening rage
Continued Isolation
Lack of decisiveness
Self examination

12. Claudius
False Concern

13. Appearance vs Reality Claudius
Grieving uncle/husband
Self-serving King who killed his brother
Caring for his nephew (when he appears mentally ill)
Appears concerned
Wants nephew sent away and harmed/spies on him (nunnery scene)
Loving husband
Does nothing when Gertrude drinks the wine and cares only for his life when Gertrude tells him of her talk with Hamlet

14. Claudius’s False concern
Appearance
King Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death the memory be green; and that it is befitted to hearts in grief., And our whole kingdom to be contracted In one brow of woe ; yet so far hath discretion fought with nature… together with remembrance of ourselves.
King the canon to the heavens to earth, “now the King Drinks to Hamlet.” Come, Begin. And you, the judges, bear a wary eye.

15. Claudius’s False concern
Reality
Klein “Shakespeare humanizes the villain by giving Claudius a conscious, however feeble”
Klein “Claudius is at the height of his power…. Finally, the court is decimated, Claudius has nearly expended all of his proxies in the deadly struggle… when Claudius cries out “O yet defend me, friends, I am… hurt!”

16. Appearance vs reality Claudius
Appears a friendly and considerate king
Looks only for his own good (Duel scene)
Eager to please Laertes’s anger
Does not care for Laertes’s life (manipulates him), but wants Hamlet out of the picture

17. Appearance vs reality Claudius
Considerate King
Does not care about the death of Polonius or Ophelia

18. Claudius’s false concern
Reality
King Thyself do grace to them and bring them in. He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hat found The head and source of all your son’s distemper.
All of Claudius’s actions are for himself:
He conveys his grief in a showy portrayal in front of his court
He portrays false concern for Hamlet’s welfare while plotting his demis e
He leads to the death of Hamlet, Laertes, and Gertrude as well as Guildenstern and Rosencratnz as the result of his greed
The result of his concealment leads to the continuous problems and the progression of his greed

19. Polonius
Appearance VS. reality

20. Polonius
Laertes
Ophelia

21. Appearance vs. reality Appearance Reality Loyal advisor Convenience
Devoted counselor of the King
He only wants recognition
Devoted father
Sacrificed his daughter’s feelings… Selfish
Concerned about his son
Concerned about his own image
He sends Reynaldo to Paris and spy on Laertes and report if he is indulging in any local vice
He instructs Ophelia to “lock herself from (Hamlet’s) resort” - This has a negative effect on Ophelia
He spies on Hamlet just to get acceptance and recognition from the King and gets killed as the result.

22. Spying on HIS SON Sacrificing his daughter’s feelings Act two
Scene 1 (page 86)
“ You shall do marvellous wisely, good Reynaldo,
Before you visit him, to make inquire
Of his behaviour. “
Act two
Scene 2 (page 125)
“No, I went round to work, And my young mistress thus I did bespeak:“ Lord Hamlet is a prince out of thy star. This must not be.” And then I prescripts gave her, That she should lock herself from his resort,”

23. Recognition and acceptance
It is more important for him to be in good terms with the King rather than his daughter’s feelings
Act two
Scene 2 (page 125)
“Or my dear Majesty your queen here, think,
If I had play'd the desk or table book,
Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb,
Or look'd upon this love with idle sight?
What might you think? No, I went round to work"

24. Laertes
Appearance VS. reality

25. Appearance vs. reality Appearance Reality Strong
He is easily manipulated
Decisive character
His progression of anger influences his decisions
Believes in justice
Wants revenge
He is easily manipulated by Claudius as he convinces him to confront Hamlet
First his father’s death and then Ophelia’s, make his anger progress and influence his decision. (He could have become king but his anger makes him look only for revenge.)
Laertes insists on justice as a way of restoring equilibrium in human relations: when he swears that Ophelia's madness "shall be paid with weight / Till our scale turn the beam" ( ), the phrase "turn the beam" means (metaphor) "tilt the bar joining the two scales of a balance,” but in reality he looks for the revenge of his father’s death.
Downfall - death

26. Manipulated by claudius
anger
Laertes openly and uncompromisingly demands justice, fearlessly challenges the king in public, reasserts his filial duty ("Where is my father?" ), and rejects feudal loyalty ("To hell, allegiance!" ) and other laws and norms ("Vows to the blackest devil! / Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!" )
Manipulated by claudius
Act four
Scene 7 (67-69)
"My lord, I will be rul'd, / The rather if you could devise it so / That I might be the organ"
REVENGE
Act four
Scene 5
Lines
“Let come what comes, only I'll be reveng'd / Most throughly for my father ”

27. Gertrude
Appearance VS. reality

28. Gertrude
Hamlet Sr.
Hamlet
Claudius

29. Appearance vs. reality Appearance Reality Loving happy queen
She married Claudius for convenience
Strong
Shows weakness when confronted by Hamlet
Concerned about her son
Self-interest (She married his uncle)
She married Hamlet’s uncle to keep her image, which finally turns out to be her worst mistake and downfall (she loses Hamlet’s respect)
Even though she tries to show strength, she feels guilty when confronted by Hamlet. The continuous appearance of strength (move on) after Hamlet Seniors’ death leads to her guilt and weakness.
She was more interested in her status that in what her son might feel and this leads to a division between she and Hamlet

30. Gertrude trying to show strength
Hamlet confronts his mother
Gertrude trying to show strength
Act three
Scene 4 (page 190)
“ Mother, you have my father much offended”
Act one
Scene 1 (page 38)
“Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not forever with thy vailèd lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust.
Thou know’st ’tis common. All that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.”
She shows weakness
Act three
Scene 4 (page 190)
” What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?
Help, help, ho! ”

31. Ophelia

32. Ophelia’s portrayal Appearance
Ophelia My lord, I have remembrances of yours That I have longed long to redeliver. I pray you now receive them
Ophelia follows her father’s and the King’s orders and states “The play presents a central figure of unique complexity whose motives penetrate the action at every point, seeking clarification through contact with it and illuminating it in turn by his central presence.”
Reality
Ophelia No, my good lord, but as you did command, I did repel his letters and denied [him]
Ophelia speaking to her father, whom she serves

33. The end