For Monday: Shakespeare, Hamlet, Acts 3 & 4

REMEMBER, Paper #2 is due on Friday by 5pm! You can turn it in late, but you lose points (see syllabus). For next week, read Acts 3-4 and answer TWO of the questions below, even though I've given you six this time! Sorry, but there's a lot of ground to cover...

Here is the original (?) To Be Or Not To Be speech from the 1603 version of Hamlet to compare to the one we have:

 To be, or not to be, aye, there’s the point.

To die, to sleep, is that all? Ay, all.

No, to sleep, to dream--ay marry, there it goes:

For in that dream of death, when we awake,

And borne before an everlasting judge,

From whence no passenger ever returned,

The undiscovered country, at whose sight

The happy smile, and the accursed damned—

But for this, the joyful hope of this,

Who’d bear the scorns and flattery of the world,

Scorned by the right rich, the cursed of the poor?

The widow being oppressed, the orphan  wronged,

The taste of hunger, or a tyrant’s reign,

And thousand more calamities besides,

To grunt and sweat under this weary life,

When that he may his full quietus make,

With a bare bodkin? Who would this endure,

But for a hope of something after death,

Which puzzles the brain, and doth confound the sense,

Which makes us rather bear those evils we have,

Than fly to others that we know not of.

Ay that, O that conscience makes cowards of us all.

Q1: Compare Hamlet’s famous To Be Or Not To Be speech carefully with the version above. How does seeing the original—which is different in a few particulars—help us really see what he’s trying to say here? In both versions,  he begins by asking, basically, “is there a difference in living or dying? Isn’t it just like sleeping—letting go of yourself?” How does our version develop this idea in a few different ways than the 1603 version? And what do both versions agree on?

Q2: Why does Hamlet turn so violently on Ophelia in Act 3, scene 1? What does he seem to be accusing her of?  Is he merely acting mad here, or is he using his madness to speak the truth? Any clues? 

Q3: In Act 3, scene 4, Hamlet argues with his mother over her 'bad' behavior much as he had earlier chided Ophelia in scene 1. By the end of it, the Queen gasps, "O Hamlet, thou has cleft my heart in twain!" Is she saying this because he's made her see the true nature of her sin? Or is she heart-broken at his apparent madness? In other words, has he won her over to his side, or does she just seem to be humoring him? 

Q4: By the end of Act Four, Laertes becomes a second Hamlet, swearing "my revenge will come." What distinguishes Laertes from Hamlet? How might Laertes' reaction to the business of revenge help us read and understand something important about Hamlet?

Q5: How has Ophelia changed by Act Four, particularly in her language? Has she gone truly mad here, or is she, too, taking a page from Hamlet's book? Is there any "method" in her madness, or is she truly speaking nonsense?

Q6: We also see a different side of Hamlet in Act Four: how does he present himself to other people in these acts? Is he still acting mad? Or is he trying another approach? Consider his lines, "Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar" (197).