Drama

The Tragedy of Hamlet: The Prince of Denmark

by William Shakespeare
GENRE
Genre is the type of story being told, and the style refers to how the work
is presented on stage. A genre or style can help to give performers a
framework to shape the devised work.

There are 4 types in genres: comedy, tragedy, tragicomedy, and

melodrama.

And this Hamlet drama is a Tragedy.

What is Tragedy?

Tragedy is a type of drama in which the protagonist or hero is brought

down by his/her flaws. Murders, deaths, insanity, and pain are among the
most common ideas in tragedies. Main characters usually have some kind
of weakness or defect that causes their downfall.
 THE PLOT
Hamlet is a young prince in Denmark who was supposed to become king when his father (also
named Hamlet) died. Instead, the throne was seized by Hamlet's uncle Claudius, who also married
Hamlet's mother, Gertrude. Hamlet meets a ghost of his dead father, who tells him that he was
poisoned by Claudius and demands that Hamlet kill Claudius in revenge.

Hamlet is at first not sure whether to believe the ghost, so he tries to investigate. He pretends to be
mad to hide what he is doing. As the play goes on, it becomes hard to tell if Hamlet is actually mad
or still just pretending. His behaviour causes him to fall out with Ophelia, a girl he was in love
with. He eventually has the idea of getting some actors to put on a play of a king being killed in the
way the ghost described to see if Claudius reacts guiltily. Claudius panics when he sees the play,
and Hamlet sees this as confirmation that he is a murderer.

Hamlet has a chance to kill Claudius in the castle chapel, but cannot bring himself to do it. While
waiting outside, he gets into an argument with his mother. Someone moves behind a curtain and
Hamlet, thinking it is Claudius, stabs him. It turns out that he has killed Polonius, a royal advisor
and Ophelia's father. Claudius orders Hamlet to be exiled to England.
 THE PLOT
He sets up a plot to have Hamlet killed, but Hamlet escapes and returns to Denmark. Meanwhile,
Ophelia has been suffering from madness after falling out with Hamlet. After learning that he has
killed her father, she drowns herself. Hamlet reappears at Ophelia's funeral and gets into a fight
with her brother Laertes. Laertes blames Hamlet for his sister and father's deaths and wants to take
revenge. He challenges Hamlet to a sword fight. Hamlet agrees.

The sword fight is arranged to take place at the castle. To get Hamlet killed, Claudius gets Laertes
to fight with a sword that has poison on the blade, and brings some poisoned wine in case this does
not work. The sword fight begins. After some fighting, Laertes wounds Hamlet and poisons him.
During a break, the swords are mixed up and Hamlet ends up fighting and wounding Laertes with
the poisoned sword. Laertes shows regret for what he has done and tells Hamlet about the poison
as he dies. Meanwhile, Gertrude drinks the poisoned wine by mistake and dies. Realising that he is
also dying, Hamlet stabs Claudius with the poisoned sword and forces him to drink the rest of the
wine. In his last moments, Hamlet tells his friend Horatio that Fortinbras, a Norwegian prince,
should be named as the next King of Denmark.
 THE CHARACTERS
The characters in the story are:

1. Hamlet, the prince of Denmark

2. Ghost, the ghost of king Hamlet
3. Gertrude, the Queen, prince Hamlet's mother
4. Claudius, the King, brother of dead King Hamlet and now married to Gertrude
5. Horatio, Hamlet's trusted friend
6. Polonius, the royal advisor
7. Laertes, the son of Polonius
8. Ophelia, the daughter of Polonius and Hamlet's girlfriend
9. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two members of Claudius' royal court, who spy on Hamlet
for Claudius
 THEMES
1. Death
The play Hamlet's major theme is death.

2. Madness
In the play Hamlet, the prince Hamlet pretends to be mad so as to find out the truth
regarding his father's death and the involvement of the new King Claudius.

3. Women
There are only two female characters Gertrude, Hamlet's mother and Ophelia to whom
Hamlet dearly loves. They both are linked to the life of Hamlet in one way or another.
 SETTINGS
The story of Hamlet is set in the late middle ages (14th and 15th centuries, or 1300 to
1499) in and around (mostly) the royal palace in Elsinore, a city in Denmark.

Hamlet's strange behavior is a liability to his parents, who have a political interest in
bringing him under control. It's Shakespeare, so it's tough. For one, it's about the most
famous play in the whole world—at least the English-speaking part of the world. Also,
unlike a lot of Shakespeare's plays, its hero is dealing with issues that everyone can
understand: annoying parents, lack of ambition, and a serious case of procrastination. If
you can get past the language, we're pretty sure you're in for a pleasant surprise.
 SETTINGS
Hamlet have two type, verse and prose : Hamlet, like Shakespeare's other plays, is
written in a combination of verse (poetry) and prose (how we talk every day). But, as
Polonius would say, there's method in the madness.

Verse : In Hamlet—like in most of Shakespeare's plays—the nobles typically speak in

unrhymed "iambic pentameter" (also called "blank verse"). Don't let the fancy names
intimidate you —it's pretty simple once you get the hang of it.
 
Prose : Characters who aren't so high-class—like the gravediggers—don't get to speak
in verse; they just talk. Hamlet himself, however, sometimes speaks in prose, even
when he's being awfully poetic.
QUOTES
“O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!”
(Hamlet, act 1 scene 2)

“This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
(Polonius, act 1 scene 3)
 QUOTES
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.“
(Gertrude, act 3 scene 2)

“My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”
(Claudius, act 3 scene 3)

“Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince;

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. ”
(Horatio, act 5 scene 2)
 QUOTES
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in our philosophy.”
(Hamlet, act 1 scene 5)

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.”

(Polonius, act 2 scene 2)
 
“There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.”
(Hamlet, act 2 scene 2)
THANK YOU