Download HAMLET REVIEW AND DISCUSSION: ACT 3 Part 1. Each person in

HAMLET REVIEW AND DISCUSSION: ACT 3
Part 1. Each person in your group is responsible for completely and thoroughly answering ONE of the
following questions.
1. Is Claudius’s reaction to “The Mousetrap” play evidence enough for Hamlet to take action? Why
or why not? Consider: Reread Hamlet’s description of the characters in the play. How accurate a
reenactment of the king’s murder is the play?
2. Is Hamlet’s indecisiveness entirely responsible, partially responsible, or not responsible at all for
his failure to kill Claudius by this point? Justify your answer with 2 or more examples from the
text.
3. Is Hamlet’s treatment of Polonius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern unfair? It is disrespectful,
mean-spirited, etc., or is it justified? Justify your answer with descriptions of each character’s
behavior toward Hamlet.
4. Does Hamlet’s treatment of Ophelia prove that Polonius and Laertes were justified in their fears
about Hamlet? Explain how he could have treated Ophelia differently with specific references to
his interactions with her in Acts 2-3, or explain why he could not have acted differently.
Part 2. Each person in your group is responsible for analyzing ONE of the following soliloquies in detail.
Include in your analysis: Who is speaking, what is the setting, and what is this character talking about.
A. To be, or not to be: that is
the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the
mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of
outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a
sea of troubles,
And by opposing end
them?—To die,—to sleep,—
No more; and by a sleep to
say we end
The heartache, and the
thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,—’tis a
consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To
die,—to sleep;—
To sleep: perchance to
dream:—ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death
what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off
this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s
the respect
That makes calamity of so
long life;
B.
O, my offense is rank, it
smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest
curse upon't,
A brother's murder. Pray
can I not,
Though inclination be as
sharp as will.
My stronger guilt defeats
my strong intent,
And like a man to double
business bound
I stand in pause where I
shall first begin,
And both neglect. What if
this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself
with brother's blood,
Is there not rain enough in
the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow?
C. ‘Tis now the very
witching time of night,
When churchyards
yawn, and hell itself
breathes out
Contagion to this world:
now could I drink hot
blood,
And do such bitter
business as the day
Would quake to look on.
D. Angels and ministers of grace
defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin
damn'd,
Bring with thee airs from heaven
or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou comest in such a
questionable shape
That I will speak to thee: I'll call
thee Hamlet,
King, father, royal Dane: O,
answer me!
Let me not burst in ignorance; but
tell
Why thy canonized bones, hearsed
in death,
Have burst their cerements; why
the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly
inurn'd,
Hath oped his ponderous and
marble jaws,
To cast thee up again.