1. Images to watch:

• poison
• infection
• revenge
• secrecy
• the arras
• madness.

2. Consider the ghost.

• Should Hamlet believe him?
• Is he really Hamlet's dad?
• How does your belief in him affect your reading of the play?

3. Is there really a ghost at all?

• Even if an actor portrays him (as is usually done), how do you know that he is really there for Hamlet?
• Does the ghost ask Hamlet to do anything that has not already occurred to Hamlet?
• Is Hamlet sane?
• Are we watching/reading real, historical events or simply a play within Hamlet's mind?

4. What exactly does the ghost order Hamlet to do? How well does Hamlet follow orders?

5. Compare the 3 men of action

• Hamlet
• Laertes
• Fortinbras
• How successful is action versus contemplation in this play?

6. Consider Hamlet's "friends"

• Horatio
• Rosencrantz
• Guildenstern

7. Consider the Claudius-Gertrude relationship.

• Did Gertrude know of Claudius' murder of her first husband?
• What (if anything) is Gertrude guilty of in the play?

8. Watch out for the enormous amount of play-acting within the play. Many characters are forced to put on an act.

• How does all of this relate to the play-within-a-play in Act III?
• Why is this mini-play at the center (literally) of Hamlet?

9. In the performance of the play-within-the-play, Hamlet assumes that a guilty man, seeing his guilt enacted before him in a drama, will be forced to somehow display his guilt. Is this reasonable?

This happens to be a belief of many of the Puritan drama critics of Shakespeare's age; they fear that the sight of evil on a stage will force the audience to go out and commit evil. The playwrights responded by saying that the sight of goodness would cause goodness and the sight of evil would shame a person into confessing his crime.

What does Shakespeare seem to think?

10. What, exactly, is rotten in the state of Denmark?

11. How does Ophelia relate to Hamlet?

• What is her purpose in the play?
• Does he really ever love her?

Thanks to JM Massi, Ph.D. for helping with study questions.