Hamlet

What's inside (8 sections)

1. Act 1: A ghost on the walls and a wedding that was too quick
2. Act 2: Spies, old friends, and players with a useful murder
3. Act 3: The Mousetrap, a missed prayer, and blood behind the curtain
4. Act 4: Madness, drowning, pirates, and a grave jumper
5. Act 5: Yorick's skull, a duel, and Fortinbras at the door
6. What still hits and what feels slow or thin
7. Key takeaways
8. FAQ

I came back to Hamlet because Romeo and Juliet left me thinking about speed. That play burns through four days and everyone acts too fast. Hamlet felt like the opposite problem when I first read it in school. Everyone waits. Everyone talks. A ghost asks for revenge in Act 1 and the bodies do not fall until Act 5. I wanted to see if the long middle still earns its place. It does, mostly, though I kept getting annoyed at Hamlet in a way I did not expect. The first quarto appeared in 1603 published by Nicholas Ling, and for this summary I used the Folger edition text as printed in the Simon and Schuster paperback, the one listed at 342 pages with the modern ISBN. That edition keeps the familiar act and scene breaks and good notes on the swords, the poison, and the politics with Norway.

Elsinore is rotting before anyone says so out loud. That is the fun of the opening. Two guards on a cold platform, Bernardo and Marcellus, have seen a shape in armor twice. They bring Horatio, Hamlet's friend from Wittenberg, because Horatio will not believe in ghosts and will therefore be a good witness. The ghost appears again, in the armor of the dead King Hamlet, and refuses to speak to them. Horatio decides Prince Hamlet has to hear this himself.

In the court the next morning everything looks normal, which is the point. Claudius, the dead king's brother, is now king and married to Gertrude, the widow and Hamlet's mother. He speaks smoothly about grief balanced with thanks. He sends Laertes, son of the counselor Polonius, back to France. He scolds Hamlet for wearing black so long after his father's death. Gertrude asks him to stop mourning too. Hamlet answers with cold politeness and then, alone, lets it spill. His first soliloquy wishes his flesh would melt. He is sick that his mother married Claudius within a month. He calls it haste and frailty and remembers how his father loved her. It is raw and very teenage in the best way, all hurt and disgust mixed together.

Then Horatio brings the news about the ghost. Hamlet agrees to watch that night. The ghost comes, beckons Hamlet away from the others, and tells a story that resets the play. He says he is the spirit of Hamlet's father, doomed to walk until old sins are burned away. He says he was not killed by a snake bite in the orchard, as the official word claims. Claudius poured poison in his ear while he slept. He asks Hamlet to revenge the murder but to leave Gertrude to heaven and her own conscience. Hamlet swears he will remember, makes Horatio and Marcellus swear to tell no one, and warns them that he may put on an antic disposition, a strange mad behavior, to hide his plan. He already sounds both fired up and trapped.

Act 1: A ghost on the walls and a wedding that was too quick

The first act works because Shakespeare gives you two Denmarks at once. There is the public one where Claudius handles papers, ambassadors, and the threat from young Fortinbras of Norway. Fortinbras wants back the lands his own father lost to old King Hamlet. Claudius sends letters to old Norway to stop him. Everything is managed and polite.

Then there is the night Denmark where the dead king walks in armor. Horatio, the skeptic, is convinced in one scene. That matters later because Horatio becomes the one person Hamlet trusts. When Hamlet meets the ghost and hears about the poison in the ear, he stops being only a sad son. He becomes a son with orders.

What I liked on this reread is how much Gertrude and Claudius reveal without meaning to. Claudius calls Hamlet his son and tells him to stay in Elsinore instead of returning to Wittenberg. It sounds kind. It also keeps Hamlet where he can be watched. Gertrude begs Hamlet to stay too, and you can feel Hamlet wanting to love her and hating her marriage at the same time. Polonius also gets a nice early beat with Laertes. He gives the famous advice speech about neither borrower nor lender being, about keeping thoughts to yourself, about dressing well but not flashy. Laertes nods along and then turns around and warns his sister Ophelia to be careful with Hamlet. Polonius backs Laertes up and orders Ophelia to stop seeing Hamlet. Poor Ophelia agrees at once. She obeys her father the way Hamlet cannot obey his mother. That contrast keeps growing.

Act 2: Spies, old friends, and players with a useful murder

Act 2 is where the play slows on purpose and where I started arguing with Hamlet in my head. Polonius decides Hamlet is mad for Ophelia's love. He has seen Ophelia frightened because Hamlet came to her room with his clothes messed up, staring, holding her wrist, sighing. Polonius reads this as lovesickness and wants to prove it to Claudius and Gertrude. He loves hearing himself talk and he loves carrying news to the king.

Claudius has his own idea. He sends for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two school friends of Hamlet, to spy on him. They agree a little too quickly. Hamlet sees through them almost at once when they arrive, though he greets them warmly at first. He tells them he has lost his mirth. Denmark feels like a prison to him. There is a great exchange where they admit they were sent for. Hamlet does not rage. He jokes and then files the fact away.

The players arrive and this lifts the whole act. Hamlet loves actors and begs for a speech about Pyrrhus and Hecuba from the Trojan war. The lead player gives it with real feeling. Hamlet is moved and then ashamed. If an actor can weep for Hecuba, a made up queen, why can he not act for his own father. That gives him the famous plan. He will have the players perform something like his father's murder in front of Claudius. He will watch the king's face.

The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

He calls it The Mousetrap. He asks Horatio to watch Claudius with him. For a prince who cannot decide, this is a clear decision. Get proof first. Then act. I admired that and also wanted to shake him, because while he plans theater, Polonius keeps using Ophelia as bait and Claudius keeps smiling.

Act 3: The Mousetrap, a missed prayer, and blood behind the curtain

Act 3 has the most famous scenes and the worst choices. It opens with Claudius and Gertrude asking Rosencrantz and Guildenstern what they learned. Polonius offers his plan to hide behind a curtain and listen while Ophelia talks to Hamlet. Claudius agrees. Everyone in Elsinore listens behind curtains. It becomes a habit and then a cause of death.

First comes the great speech. Hamlet, alone, asks whether to be or not to be. He weighs sleep and dreams and fear of what comes after death. He lists whips and scorns and legal delays and love rejected. He wonders if fear of the unknown keeps us alive. It is not only about suicide, though that is in it. It is about why people bear pain instead of ending it.

To be, or not to be, that is the question.

Then Ophelia enters for the nunnery scene and it hurts to read. Hamlet knows or suspects he is being watched. Ophelia tries to return his letters. Hamlet turns cruel. He tells her he loved her once and then says he never loved her. He tells her to go to a nunnery, a convent, because marriage breeds sinners. He rants against women and against himself. Ophelia, alone afterward, mourns the mind that has collapsed. She remembers his learning and speech and now sees noise and wildness. Polonius and Claudius watch. Claudius decides love is not the cause. He decides Hamlet is dangerous and starts thinking of sending him to England.

The play within the play is staged that night. Hamlet is buzzing, joking with Ophelia in front of everyone, calling himself merry, needling his mother. The players perform The Murder of Gonzago with extra lines Hamlet added. The plot matches the ghost's story. A king sleeps in a garden. A nephew pours poison in his ear. When the poison goes in, Claudius stands, calls for light, and leaves. The court breaks up. Hamlet is thrilled. He thinks he has proof. Horatio agrees the king looked guilty.

What follows is pure Hamlet. He finds Claudius alone, kneeling, trying to pray. This is his chance. He draws his sword and then stops. If he kills Claudius at prayer, Claudius might go to heaven, while his father was killed without last rites and walks in torment. He wants a more complete revenge. He leaves Claudius alive. Claudius, left alone, admits his prayer failed. He cannot repent and keep the crown and the queen. So guilt is confirmed for us, and Hamlet still waits.

Then the closet scene. Hamlet goes to Gertrude's room at her request. Polonius hides behind the arras to listen. Hamlet is harsh with his mother, makes her look at two portraits, his father and Claudius, and shames her choice. Gertrude cries out. Polonius calls out from behind the curtain. Hamlet stabs through the cloth, thinking it is Claudius. It is Polonius. Hamlet barely pauses. He calls the old man a rash intruding fool and drags the body aside. Gertrude is horrified. The ghost enters, visible only to Hamlet, to remind him of his purpose and to tell him to comfort his mother. Gertrude thinks Hamlet talks to air. Hamlet begs her to stop sleeping with Claudius and to confess. She promises she sees her stain. Hamlet leaves, pulling Polonius along, and tells Claudius he will find the body. The joke about Polonius being at supper, where worms eat kings and beggars, is funny and cold. Hamlet has killed the wrong man and he knows it, but he treats it as collateral.

Act 4: Madness, drowning, pirates, and a grave jumper

Act 4 belongs to fallout. Claudius moves fast now. He tells Gertrude he must send Hamlet to England for safety, though he plans death. He sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern with sealed orders asking England to kill Hamlet on arrival. Hamlet goes along, strangely calm, and tells his friends he does not trust them.

Ophelia breaks in public and it is awful to watch. She sings odd songs about dead fathers and lost maidenhood. She hands out herbs with meanings, rue for sorrow, fennel and columbines, and remembers rosemary for remembrance. Claudius tries kind words. Gertrude tries to hold her. Neither can reach her. Laertes bursts back from France with rebels at his heels, demanding his father's body and answers. Claudius calms him with talk and points the blame at Hamlet. When Ophelia enters singing, Laertes weeps. The family that gave advice about caution is now shattered.

News comes that Ophelia drowned. Gertrude describes it in soft detail. Ophelia fell from a willow into a brook, still singing, her clothes spreading around her like a dress holding her up for a while, until the wet fabric pulled her down. Some readers hear suicide. Some hear accident. The priest at her funeral treats it as doubtful and refuses full rites. Either way the image sticks. A girl used by her father, her lover, and the king ends up alone in water with flowers.

Hamlet does not go quietly to England. On the ship he finds the sealed commission, rewrites it to order the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern instead, seals it with his father's signet, and escapes during a pirate attack. He sends word to Horatio that he is back in Denmark. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern sail on to their deaths. Hamlet tells Horatio this without much pity. He has stopped seeing them as friends.

He returns in time for Ophelia's funeral. Laertes jumps into her grave and curses the priest for short prayers. Hamlet steps forward and jumps in too. They grapple in the dirt. Hamlet shouts that he loved Ophelia more than forty thousand brothers could. It is wild and selfish and maybe sincere. Afterward Claudius works on Laertes in private. He proposes a fencing match with a wager. Laertes will use a sharp, unbated foil tipped with poison. As backup, Claudius will keep a poisoned cup ready for Hamlet to drink when thirsty. Laertes agrees. He wants his father and sister avenged. The court that spied behind curtains now plots with blades and cups.

Act 5: Yorick's skull, a duel, and Fortinbras at the door

The graveyard scene is my favorite in the play because it lets Hamlet be funny and sad without plotting. Two clowns dig Ophelia's grave and argue law about whether she deserves Christian burial. Hamlet and Horatio come in and joke with the sexton. Hamlet picks up skulls. One, the sexton says, belonged to Yorick, the king's jester who carried Hamlet on his back as a child. Hamlet holds it and remembers kisses and jokes. Alexander the Great and Caesar get the same treatment in his head. Dust stops a beer barrel. That is Elsinore in one image. Great men and fools end as clay.

Then the funeral party arrives. Hamlet learns whose grave it is. He fights Laertes in the grave and later apologizes in courtly words that do not quite apologize. He says madness took him. Laertes accepts for show but keeps the poison plan. Claudius sets the duel with bets and ceremony. Courtiers gather. It feels like sport and everyone knows it is not.

The duel moves fast after so much talk. Laertes wounds Hamlet with the poisoned foil. In the scuffle they exchange swords and Hamlet wounds Laertes with the same poisoned blade. Gertrude, against Claudius telling her not to drink, takes the poisoned cup meant for Hamlet and toasts him. She falls. Laertes, dying, confesses the treachery and names Claudius. Hamlet stabs Claudius with the poisoned foil and forces the poisoned cup to his lips. Claudius dies. Hamlet, dying, begs Horatio not to kill himself with the leftover poison but to live and tell his story true. He names young Fortinbras as heir. Fortinbras marches in from his campaign in Poland, finds bodies on the stage, and orders Hamlet carried like a soldier. Horatio promises to speak. The Norwegian prince takes Denmark without a fight.

I found the ending both satisfying and wasteful, which I think is the point. Revenge works and kills the wrong people plus the right ones. Gertrude drinks from love or pride or thirst, we never get her motive clean. Laertes gets honor and poison together. Hamlet finally acts and dies within minutes. Fortinbras, who has hovered at the edge with armies and ambassadors, walks into a quiet castle. The court that watched and whispered is empty.

What still hits and what feels slow or thin

What hits for me is the language tied to action. Hamlet's jokes with Polonius about clouds shaped like camels and whales show his fake madness working. His advice to the players about speaking plainly and not sawing the air shows he knows theater from inside. His cruelty to Ophelia and Gertrude shows the cost of his act. His talk with Horatio before the duel, about providence in the fall of a sparrow, shows a calmer Hamlet who has stopped trying to control every outcome. These beats play well because other people react. Horatio listens. Gertrude flinches. Claudius rises. Laertes bleeds.

What drags is the middle stretch of spying. Polonius sends Reynaldo to Paris to check on Laertes with planted lies. Claudius sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to draw Hamlet out. Polonius hides behind curtains twice. It repeats. Modern readers may also feel Rosencrantz and Guildenstern stay flat. They get a few good lines about fortune and flattery, then they carry letters to their deaths and Hamlet shrugs. Shakespeare gives them no farewell scene. If you like them, that stings.

Ophelia deserves an honest note too. She has charm and pain but little room. She obeys her father, returns letters when told, sings mad when grief hits, and drowns offstage. We learn more about Yorick from a skull than we learn about Ophelia from her own scenes. Laertes gets revenge speeches. Hamlet gets soliloquies. Ophelia gets flowers and songs. That imbalance is part of why her death lands so hard, yet it also feels like the play uses her more than it knows her.

Gertrude is harder to place and I liked that. Is she guilty of adultery before the murder. Did she know about the poison. Why does she drink the cup. The text lets you argue. I read her as a woman who chose comfort and then saw the price too late. Her description of the drowning is tender. Her toast to Hamlet feels like a mother choosing her son over her husband at the last minute. Others read her as weak or complicit. Both views fit lines in the play.

If you read it after Romeo and Juliet, watch the clocks. Romeo rushes in four days. Hamlet stalls across weeks with trips to England and back. Both end with bodies on stage and old men talking about peace. Here Fortinbras gives the closing orders instead of the Prince. Read slowly through Acts 2 and 3, mark every time someone hides to listen, and note when Hamlet acts fast. He stabs Polonius in a second. He rewrites the death letter at sea. He jumps in a grave. He kills Claudius at last. The man who talks about delay can move quickly when anger takes over. That mix is why friends still argue about him. Pick up the Simon and Schuster paperback, follow Horatio as your guide, and let the graveyard and the duel carry you through the slow parts.

FAQ

When was Hamlet first printed, and by whom?

The first quarto appeared in 1603 published by Nicholas Ling. This summary follows the Folger edition text as printed in the Simon and Schuster paperback.

Why does Hamlet stage the Mousetrap play?

He wants proof beyond the ghost's word before killing a king. When Claudius rises and calls for light, Hamlet takes it as guilt confirmed.

Who dies in the final duel and how?

Laertes wounds Hamlet with a poisoned foil, then they exchange swords and Hamlet wounds Laertes. Gertrude drinks the poisoned cup meant for Hamlet, and Hamlet forces the rest on Claudius before naming Fortinbras heir.