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Hamlet Act 4

Shakespeare’s Act Four: Where p roblems spiral out of control and grow wildly more complex and difficult to overcome. Hamlet Act 4. Act Four. As a reminder, Act Three is the turning point of the play, whereas Act Four is where the characters’ fates are bound to their unavoidable outcomes.

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Hamlet Act 4

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  1. Shakespeare’s Act Four: Where problems spiral out of control and grow wildly more complex and difficult to overcome Hamlet Act 4

  2. Act Four • As a reminder, Act Three is the turning point of the play, whereas Act Four is where the characters’ fates are bound to their unavoidable outcomes. • As we look at the scenes in this act, ask yourself: In what way do each of the characters solidify their place in destiny?

  3. Today’s Objectives Analyze the role of the pirates (AHOY, MATEY), revenge, accidental death (OR WAS IT A SUICIDE?) and symbolism (ROSES AREN’T THE ONLY SYMBOLIC FLOWERS, YA KNOW) We’ll also look at an example of Deus Ex Machina (DEY-UHS EKS MAH-KUH-NUH)

  4. Act 4.6: The Pirates Appear • HORATIO     [Reads] 'Horatio, when thou shalt have overlooked     this, give these fellows some means to the king:     they have letters for him. Ere we were two days old     at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment gave us     chase. Finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on     a compelled valour, and in the grapple I boarded     them: on the instant they got clear of our ship; so     I alone became their prisoner. They have dealt with     me like thieves of mercy: but they knew what they     did; I am to do a good turn for them. Let the king     have the letters I have sent; and repair thou to me     with as much speed as thou wouldst fly death. I     have words to speak in thine ear will make thee     dumb; yet are they much too light for the bore of     the matter. These good fellows will bring thee     where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their     course for England: of them I have much to tell     thee. Farewell.     'He that thou knowest thine, HAMLET.'

  5. Act 4.6: The Pirates Appear • Summarize the information Hamlet relays in his message to Horatio. • Does it seem to coincidental for there to be a random pirate attack in a play with no previous foreshadowing to explain its presence? • Or, do you think Shakespeare was being lazy and just could not think of a way to get Hamlet back to Denmark? • Or, is it possible that there is another possibility?

  6. Act 4.6: The Pirates Appear • Is it possible that Hamlet hired the pirates to kidnap him? If Hamlet suspected Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of deception, then he may have arranged for pirates to prevent their mission.  The outcome is, of course, critical to the play’s action, for in order to reach the climax, Hamlet must return to the scene.

  7. Act 4.6: The Pirates Appear • Or is this a case of Deus Ex Machina, which means God from a machine? (dey-uh s eks mah-kuh-nuh) • Deus Ex Machina is any artificial or improbable device that is introduced to resolve the difficulties of a plot. In other words, if an author writes himself into a jam, he might use a Deus Ex Machina device to get himself out of it. Sound like the pirates?

  8. 4.7: The Revenge Plot within a Revenge Plot • KING CLAUDIUS Laertes, was your father dear to you?     Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,     A face without a heart? LAERTES     Why ask you this? KING CLAUDIUS     Not that I think you did not love your father;     But that I know love is begun by time;     And that I see, in passages of proof,     Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.     There lives within the very flame of love     A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it;     And nothing is at a like goodness still;     For goodness, growing to a plurisy,     Dies in his own too much: that we would do     We should do when we would; for this 'would' changes     And hath abatements and delays as many     As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;     And then this 'should' is like a spendthrift sigh,     That hurts by easing. But, to the quick o' the ulcer:--     Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake,     To show yourself your father's son in deed     More than in words? LAERTES     To cut his throat i' the church. • KING CLAUDIUS     No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize;     Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes,     Will you do this, keep close within your chamber.     Hamlet return'd shall know you are come home:     We'll put on those shall praise your excellence     And set a double varnish on the fame     The Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine together     And wager on your heads: he, being remiss,     Most generous and free from all contriving,     Will not peruse the foils; so that, with ease,     Or with a little shuffling, you may choose     A sword unbated, and in a pass of practise     Requite him for your father. LAERTES     I will do't:     And, for that purpose, I'll anoint my sword.     I bought an unction of a mountebank,     So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,     Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,     Collected from all simples that have virtue     Under the moon, can save the thing from death     That is but scratch'd withal: I'll touch my point     With this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly,     It may be death. What lines from the above columns have similarities to Hamlet’s own revenge plot? Record them in your notes.

  9. 4.7: Revenge: Why doesn’t Claudius just kill Hamlet himself? • Historically, the Scandinavian countries elected their kings; monarchs were not necessarily given power through succession.  • Shakespeare indicates that Gertrude’s father was the King before King Hamlet, and King Hamlet was selected to marry Gertrude.  • This marriage ensured King Hamlet’s election to the throne by the Knights of the court. • Claudius cannot afford to lose the support of his Knights, and cannot afford to lose Gertrude. This is why he cannot act against Gertrude’s son, Hamlet.  Claudius, therefore, needs Laertes’ assistance in dispatching Hamlet.  • Laertes is renowned for his swordsmanship and is the perfect foil for Hamlet.  He wastes no time in fancy words and morose behavior.  He wishes to get on immediately with the task at hand and now has the additional loss of his sister to motivate him (See his quote Act IV, scene vii, line 124 as evidence)

  10. 4.7 Analysis: Accident or Suicide? • QUEEN GERTRUDE     There is a willow grows aslant a brook,     That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;     There with fantastic garlands did she come     Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples     That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,     But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them:     There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;     When down her weedy trophies and herself     Fell in the weeping brook.Her clothes spread wide;     And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:     Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;     As one incapable of her own distress,     Or like a creature native and indued     Unto that element: but long it could not be     Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,     Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay     To muddy death. Based on your own reading of these lines, what conclusion do you come to? Why?

  11. 4.7 Analysis: Accident or Suicide? • This monologue is really two separate ideas merged together to have one larger impact. • Through these lines, the delicate imagery of _____________ reminds us of Ophelia’s own _____________, as well as her __________________.

  12. 4.7 Analysis: Accident or Suicide? • From the beginning of the play, Ophelia has been represented by flowers. In her first scene, Polonius presents her with a violet; after she goes mad, she sings songs about flowers; and now she drowns amid long streams of them. Just like the flowers Ophelia gives as gifts symbolize deeper meanings, so to does Ophelia’s death amidst the flowers. • Through these lines, the delicate imagery of flowers reminds us of Ophelia’s own fragile beauty, as well as her innocence, budding sexuality, and the inevitability of her early demise.

  13. 4.7 Analysis: Accident or Suicide? • The audience suspects that Ophelia has committed suicide, and again Shakespeare suggests that she was pregnant as it was the convention at that time that unmarried, pregnant women would drown themselves. The pressures on Ophelia were great. She had committed a cardinal sin and faced the prospect of a future alone, shunned by the court, her father was dead, and she was about to face her condemning brother. • It is ironic that now Hamlet, returning to the scene, has become an instrument of evil.  He has caused the deaths of Polonius and Ophelia and it is clear that something is ‘rotten in the State of Denmark’.  His honorable quest for revenge has now turned sour, for he has committed wrong in order to obtain vengeance in respect of Claudius’ wrongdoings.

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