Hamlet – Son of the former King, and nephew of the present King.
Claudius – King of Denmark, and Hamlet's uncle.
Gertrude – Queen of Denmark, and mother to Hamlet.
Polonius – Lord Chamberlain
Ophelia – Daughter to Polonius
Horatio – Friend to Hamlet
Laertes – Son to Polonius
Voltimand and Cornelius – Courtiers
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern – Courtiers, friends to Hamlet
Plot
The protagonist of Hamlet is Prince Hamlet of Denmark, son of deceased King Hamlet and his wife, Queen Gertrude.
The story opens on a chilly night at Elsinore,
the Danish royal castle. Francisco, one of the sentinels, is relieved
of his watch by Bernardo, another sentinel, and exits while Bernardo
remains. A third sentinel, Marcellus, enters with Horatio, Hamlet's best friend. The sentinels
inform Horatio that they have seen a ghost that looks like the dead
King Hamlet. After hearing from Horatio of the Ghost's appearance,
Hamlet resolves to see the Ghost himself. That night, the Ghost appears
again. It leads Hamlet to a secluded place, claims that it is the actual
spirit of his father, and discloses that he—the elder Hamlet—was
murdered by his brother Claudius pouring poison
in his ear. The Ghost demands that Hamlet avenge him; Hamlet agrees,
swears his companions to secrecy, and tells them he intends to "put an
antic disposition on" (presumably to avert suspicion). Hamlet initially attests to the
ghost's reliability, calling him both an "honest ghost" and "truepenny."
Later, however, he expresses doubts about the ghost's nature and
intent, claiming these as reasons for his inaction.
Polonius is Claudius's trusted chief counsellor and friend; Polonius's son, Laertes, is returning to France, and Polonius's daughter, Ophelia,
is courted by Hamlet. Both Polonius and Laertes warn Ophelia that
Hamlet is surely not serious about her. Shortly afterward, Ophelia is
alarmed by Hamlet's strange behaviour, reporting to her father that
Hamlet rushed into her room, stared at her, and said nothing. Polonius
assumes that the "ecstasy of love" is responsible for Hamlet's "mad" behaviour, and he informs Claudius and Gertrude.
Perturbed by Hamlet's continuing deep mourning for his father and his
increasingly erratic behaviour, Claudius sends for two of Hamlet's
acquaintances—Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—to
find out the cause of Hamlet's changed behaviour. Hamlet greets his
friends warmly but quickly discerns that they have been sent to spy on
him.
Together, Claudius and Polonius convince Ophelia to speak with Hamlet
while they secretly listen. Hamlet enters, contemplating suicide ( To be, or not to be).
Ophelia greets him, and offers to return his remembrances, upon which
Hamlet questions her honesty and furiously rants at her to "get thee to a
nunnery."
 Hamlet remains uncertain whether the Ghost has told him the truth,
but the arrival of a troupe of actors at Elsinore presents him with a
solution. He will have them stage a play, The Murder of Gonzago,
re-enacting his father's murder and determine Claudius's guilt or
innocence by studying his reaction to it. The court assembles to watch
the play; Hamlet provides an agitated running commentary throughout.
When the murder scene is presented, Claudius abruptly rises and leaves
the room, which Hamlet sees as proof of his uncle's guilt.
Gertrude summons Hamlet to her closet to demand an explanation. On
his way, Hamlet passes Claudius in prayer, but hesitates to kill him,
reasoning that death in prayer would send him to heaven. However, it is
revealed that the King is not truly praying, remarking that "words"
never made it to heaven without "thoughts." An argument erupts between Hamlet and Gertrude. Polonius, spying on the
scene from behind an arras and convinced that the prince's madness is
indeed real, panics when it seems as if Hamlet is about to murder the
Queen and cries out for help. Hamlet, believing it is Claudius hiding
behind the arras,
stabs wildly through the cloth, killing Polonius. When he realises that
he has killed Ophelia's father, he is not immediately remorseful in
speech, for Polonius listening dies a fool, but calls Polonius "Thou
wretched, rash, intruding fool." Yet shortly after speaks remorse, "I
repent: but heaven hath pleased it so."
The Ghost appears, urging Hamlet to treat Gertrude gently, but
reminding him to kill Claudius. Unable to see or hear the Ghost herself,
Gertrude takes Hamlet's conversation with it as further evidence of
madness.
Claudius, now fearing for his life, finds a legitimate excuse to get
rid of the prince: he sends Hamlet to England on a diplomatic pretext,
accompanied (and closely watched) by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Alone, Claudius discloses that he is actually sending Hamlet to his
death. Prior to embarking for England, Hamlet hides Polonius's body,
ultimately revealing its location to the King. Upon leaving Elsinore,
Hamlet encounters the army of Prince Fortinbras en route to do battle in
Poland. Upon witnessing so many men going to their death on the brash
whim of an impulsive prince, Hamlet declares, "O, from this time forth, /
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!"
At Elsinore, further demented by grief at her father Polonius's
death, Ophelia wanders the castle, acting erratically and singing bawdy
songs. Her brother, Laertes, returns from France, horrified by his
father's death and his sister's madness. She appears briefly to give out
herbs and flowers. Claudius convinces Laertes that Hamlet is solely
responsible; then news arrives that Hamlet is still alive—a story is
spread that his ship was attacked by pirates
on the way to England, and he has returned to Denmark. Claudius swiftly
concocts a plot to kill his nephew but make it appear to be an
accident, taking all of the blame off his shoulders. Knowing of Hamlet's
jealousy of Laertes' prowess with a sword, he proposes a fencing
match between the two. Laertes, enraged at the murder of his father,
informs the king that he will further poison the tip of his sword so
that a mere scratch would mean certain death. Claudius, unsure that
capable Hamlet could receive even a scratch, plans to offer Hamlet
poisoned wine if that fails. Gertrude enters to report that Ophelia has
drowned.
 In the Elsinore churchyard, two "clowns",
typically represented as "gravediggers," enter to prepare Ophelia's
grave, and although the coroner has ruled her death accidental so that
she may receive Christian burial, they argue that it was a case of
suicide. Hamlet arrives with Horatio and banters with one of them, who
unearths the skull of a jester whom Hamlet once knew, Yorick
("Alas, Poor Yorick; I knew him, Horatio."). Ophelia's funeral
procession approaches, led by her mournful brother Laertes. Distraught
at the lack of ceremony (due to the actually-deemed suicide) and
overcome by emotion, Laertes leaps into the grave, cursing Hamlet as the
cause of her death. Hamlet interrupts, professing his own love and
grief for Ophelia. He and Laertes grapple, but the fight is broken up by
Claudius and Gertrude. Claudius reminds Laertes of the planned fencing
match.
Later that day, Hamlet tells Horatio how he escaped death on his
journey, disclosing that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have been sent to
their deaths instead. A courtier, Osric,
interrupts to invite Hamlet to fence with Laertes. Despite Horatio's
warnings, Hamlet accepts and the match begins. After several rounds,
Gertrude toasts Hamlet—against the urgent warning of
Claudius—accidentally drinking the wine he poisoned. Between bouts,
Laertes attacks and pierces Hamlet with his poisoned blade; in the
ensuing scuffle, Hamlet is able to use Laertes's own poisoned sword
against him. Gertrude falls and, in her dying breath, announces that she
has been poisoned.
In his dying moments, Laertes is reconciled with Hamlet and reveals
Claudius's murderous plot. Hamlet stabs Claudius with the poisoned
sword, and then forces him to drink from his own poisoned cup to make
sure he dies. In his final moments, Hamlet names Prince Fortinbras of Norway
as the probable heir to the throne, since the Danish kingship is an
elected position, with the country's nobles having the final say.
Horatio attempts to kill himself with the same poisoned wine but is
stopped by Hamlet, so he will be the only one left alive to give a full
account of the story.
When Fortinbras arrives to greet King Claudius, he encounters the
deadly scene: Gertrude, Claudius, Laertes, and Hamlet are all dead.
Horatio asks to be allowed to recount the tale to "the yet unknowing
world," and Fortinbras orders Hamlet's body borne off in honour.
*****************************************************
 Horatio’s steadfastness and loyalty contrasts
with Hamlet’s variability and excitability, though both share a
love of learning, reason, and thought. Claudius’s willingness to
disregard all moral law and act decisively to fulfill his appetites
and lust for power contrasts powerfully with Hamlet’s concern for
morality and indecisive inability to act. Fortinbras’s willingness
to go to great lengths to avenge his father’s death, even to the
point of waging war, contrasts sharply with Hamlet’s inactivity,
even though both of them are concerned with avenging their fathers.
Laertes’ single-minded, furious desire to avenge Polonius stands
in stark opposition to Hamlet’s inactivity with regard to his own
father’s death. Finally, Hamlet, Laertes, and Fortinbras are all
in a position to seek revenge for the murders of their fathers,
and their situations are deeply intertwined. Hamlet’s father killed
Fortinbras’s father, and Hamlet killed Laertes’ father, meaning
that Hamlet occupies the same role for Laertes as Claudius does
for Hamlet.
Context and interpretation
Religious
Written at a time of religious upheaval, and in the wake of the English Reformation, the play is alternately Catholic (or piously medieval) and Protestant (or consciously modern). The Ghost describes himself as being in purgatory, and as dying without last rites.
This and Ophelia's burial ceremony, which is characteristically
Catholic, make up most of the play's Catholic connections. Some scholars
have observed that revenge tragedies
come from traditionally Catholic countries, such as Spain and Italy;
and they present a contradiction, since according to Catholic doctrine
the strongest duty is to God and family. Hamlet's conundrum, then, is
whether to avenge his father and kill Claudius, or to leave the
vengeance to God, as his religion requires.
 Much of the play's Protestantism derives from its location in
Denmark—both then and now a predominantly Protestant country, though it
is unclear whether the fictional Denmark of the play is intended to
mirror this fact. The play does mention Wittenberg, where Hamlet, Horatio, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern attend university, and where Martin Luther first proposed his 95 theses in 1517, effectively ushering in the Protestant Reformation. In Shakespeare's day Denmark, as the majority of Scandinavia, was Lutheran.
Philosophical
 Hamlet is often perceived as a philosophical character, expounding ideas that are now described as relativist, existentialist, and sceptical.
For example, he expresses a subjectivistic idea when he says to
Rosencrantz: "there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it
so". The idea that nothing is real except in the mind of the individual finds its roots in the Greek Sophists,
who argued that since nothing can be perceived except through the
senses—and since all individuals sense, and therefore perceive, things
differently—there is no absolute truth, only relative truth. The clearest alleged instance of existentialism is in the "to be, or not to be" speech, where Hamlet is thought by some to use "being" to allude to life and action, and "not being" to death and inaction.
Hamlet reflects the contemporary scepticism promoted by the French Renaissance humanist, Montaigne. Prior to Montaigne's time, humanists such as Pico della Mirandola
had argued that man was God's greatest creation, made in God's image
and able to choose his own nature, but this view was subsequently
challenged in Michel de Montaigne's Essais of 1580. Hamlet's "What a piece of work is a man"
echoes many of Montaigne's ideas, but scholars disagree whether
Shakespeare drew directly from Montaigne or whether both men were simply
reacting similarly to the spirit of the times.
In his openness to embrace the message of the ghost, Hamlet assuages
Horatio's wonderment with the analytical assertion, "There are more
things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your
philosophy."
Feminist
 In the 20th century feminist critics opened up new approaches to Gertrude and Ophelia. Though it is said that they are off. New Historicist and cultural materialist critics examined the play in its historical context, attempting to piece together its original cultural environment. They focused on the gender system of early modern England, pointing to the common trinity of maid, wife, or widow, with whores alone outside of the stereotype. In this analysis, the essence of Hamlet
is the central character's changed perception of his mother as a whore
because of her failure to remain faithful to Old Hamlet. In consequence,
Hamlet loses his faith in all women, treating Ophelia as if she too
were a whore and dishonest with Hamlet. Ophelia, by some critics, can be
honest and fair; however, it is virtually impossible to link these two
traits, since 'fairness' is an outward trait, while 'honesty' is an
inward trait.
 Carolyn Heilbrun's
1957 essay "The Character of Hamlet's Mother" defends Gertrude, arguing
that the text never hints that Gertrude knew of Claudius poisoning King
Hamlet. This analysis has been championed by many feminist critics,
despite that Gertrude remains incestuous and is found very guilty saying
to Hamlet, "Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul; And there I see
such black and grained spots, as will not leave their tinct." Yet
Heilbrun argued that men have for centuries completely misinterpreted
Gertrude. By this account, no clear evidence suggests that Gertrude is
an adulteress but pervertedly adapting to the circumstances of her
husband's death for the good of the kingdom.
Ophelia has also been defended by feminist critics, most notably Elaine Showalter.
Ophelia is surrounded by powerful men: her father, brother, and Hamlet.
All three disappear: Laertes leaves, Hamlet abandons her, and Polonius
dies. Conventional theories had argued that without these three powerful
men making decisions for her, Ophelia is driven into madness.
Feminist theorists argue that she goes mad with guilt because, when
Hamlet kills her father, he has fulfilled her sexual desire to have
Hamlet kill her father so they can be together. Showalter points out
that Ophelia has become the symbol of the distraught and hysterical
woman in modern culture.
Themes, Motifs & Symbols
Themes
The Impossibility of Certainty
What separates Hamlet from other revenge
plays (and maybe from every play written before it) is that the
action we expect to see, particularly from Hamlet himself, is continually
postponed while Hamlet tries to obtain more certain knowledge about
what he is doing. This play poses many questions that other plays
would simply take for granted. Can we have certain knowledge about
ghosts? Is the ghost what it appears to be, or is it really a misleading
fiend? Does the ghost have reliable knowledge about its own death,
or is the ghost itself deluded? Moving to more earthly matters:
How can we know for certain the facts about a crime that has no
witnesses? Can Hamlet know the state of Claudius’s soul by watching
his behavior? If so, can he know the facts of what Claudius
did by observing the state of his soul? Can Claudius (or the audience)
know the state of Hamlet’s mind by observing his behavior and listening
to his speech? Can we know whether our actions will have the consequences
we want them to have? Can we know anything about the afterlife?
Many people have seen Hamlet as a play
about indecisiveness, and thus about Hamlet’s failure to act appropriately.
It might be more interesting to consider that the play shows us
how many uncertainties our lives are built upon, how many unknown
quantities are taken for granted when people act or when they evaluate
one another’s actions.
The Complexity of Action
Directly related to the theme of certainty is the theme
of action. How is it possible to take reasonable, effective, purposeful
action? In Hamlet, the question of how to act is
affected not only by rational considerations, such as the need for
certainty, but also by emotional, ethical, and psychological factors.
Hamlet himself appears to distrust the idea that it’s even possible
to act in a controlled, purposeful way. When he does act, he prefers
to do it blindly, recklessly, and violently. The other characters
obviously think much less about “action” in the abstract than Hamlet
does, and are therefore less troubled about the possibility of acting
effectively. They simply act as they feel is appropriate. But in
some sense they prove that Hamlet is right, because all of their
actions miscarry. Claudius possesses himself of queen and
crown through bold action, but his conscience torments him, and
he is beset by threats to his authority (and, of course, he dies).
Laertes resolves that nothing will distract him from acting out
his revenge, but he is easily influenced and manipulated into serving
Claudius’s ends, and his poisoned rapier is turned back upon himself.
The Mystery of Death
In the aftermath of his father’s murder, Hamlet is obsessed
with the idea of death, and over the course of the play he considers
death from a great many perspectives. He ponders both the spiritual
aftermath of death, embodied in the ghost, and the physical remainders of
the dead, such as by Yorick’s skull and the decaying corpses in
the cemetery. Throughout, the idea of death is closely tied to the
themes of spirituality, truth, and uncertainty in that death may
bring the answers to Hamlet’s deepest questions, ending once and
for all the problem of trying to determine truth in an ambiguous
world. And, since death is both the cause and the consequence of
revenge, it is intimately tied to the theme of revenge and justice—Claudius’s
murder of King Hamlet initiates Hamlet’s quest for revenge, and
Claudius’s death is the end of that quest.
The question of his own death plagues Hamlet as well,
as he repeatedly contemplates whether or not suicide is a morally
legitimate action in an unbearably painful world. Hamlet’s grief
and misery is such that he frequently longs for death to end his
suffering, but he fears that if he commits suicide, he will be consigned
to eternal suffering in hell because of the Christian religion’s
prohibition of suicide. In his famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy
(III.i), Hamlet philosophically concludes that no one would choose
to endure the pain of life if he or she were not afraid of what
will come after death, and that it is this fear which causes complex
moral considerations to interfere with the capacity for action.
The Nation as a Diseased Body
Everything is connected in Hamlet, including
the welfare of the royal family and the health of the state as a
whole. The play’s early scenes explore the sense of anxiety and
dread that surrounds the transfer of power from one ruler to the
next. Throughout the play, characters draw explicit connections
between the moral legitimacy of a ruler and the health of the nation.
Denmark is frequently described as a physical body made ill by the
moral corruption of Claudius and Gertrude, and many observers interpret
the presence of the ghost as a supernatural omen indicating that
“[s]omething is rotten in the state of Denmark” (I.iv.67).
The dead King Hamlet is portrayed as a strong, forthright ruler
under whose guard the state was in good health, while Claudius,
a wicked politician, has corrupted and compromised Denmark to satisfy
his own appetites. At the end of the play, the rise to power of
the upright Fortinbras suggests that Denmark will be strengthened
once again.
Motifs
Incest and Incestuous Desire
The motif of incest runs throughout the play and is frequently alluded
to by Hamlet and the ghost, most obviously in conversations about
Gertrude and Claudius, the former brother-in-law and sister-in-law
who are now married. A subtle motif of incestuous desire can be
found in the relationship of Laertes and Ophelia, as Laertes sometimes
speaks to his sister in suggestively sexual terms and, at her funeral,
leaps into her grave to hold her in his arms. However,
the strongest overtones of incestuous desire arise in the relationship
of Hamlet and Gertrude, in Hamlet’s fixation on Gertrude’s sex life
with Claudius and his preoccupation with her in general.
Misogyny
Shattered by his mother’s decision to marry Claudius so
soon after her husband’s death, Hamlet becomes cynical about women
in general, showing a particular obsession with what he perceives
to be a connection between female sexuality and moral corruption.
This motif of misogyny, or hatred of women, occurs sporadically throughout
the play, but it is an important inhibiting factor in Hamlet’s relationships
with Ophelia and Gertrude. He urges Ophelia to go to a nunnery rather
than experience the corruptions of sexuality and exclaims of Gertrude,
“Frailty, thy name is woman” (I.ii.146).
Ears and Hearing
One facet of Hamlet’s exploration of
the difficulty of attaining true knowledge is slipperiness of language.
Words are used to communicate ideas, but they can also be used to
distort the truth, manipulate other people, and serve as tools in
corrupt quests for power. Claudius, the shrewd politician, is the
most obvious example of a man who manipulates words to enhance his
own power. The sinister uses of words are represented by images
of ears and hearing, from Claudius’s murder of the king by pouring
poison into his ear to Hamlet’s claim to Horatio that “I have words
to speak in thine ear will make thee dumb” (IV.vi.21).
The poison poured in the king’s ear by Claudius is used by the ghost
to symbolize the corrosive effect of Claudius’s dishonesty on the
health of Denmark. Declaring that the story that he was killed by
a snake is a lie, he says that “the whole ear of Denmark” is “Rankly
abused. . . .” (I.v.36–38).
Symbols
Yorick’s Skull
In Hamlet, physical objects are rarely
used to represent thematic ideas. One important exception is Yorick’s
skull, which Hamlet discovers in the graveyard in the first scene
of Act V. As Hamlet speaks to the skull and about the skull of the
king’s former jester, he fixates on death’s inevitability and the
disintegration of the body. He urges the skull to “get you to my
lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this
favor she must come”—no one can avoid death (V.i.178–179).
He traces the skull’s mouth and says, “Here hung those lips that
I have kissed I know not how oft,” indicating his fascination with
the physical consequences of death (V.i.174–175). This
latter idea is an important motif throughout the play, as Hamlet
frequently makes comments referring to every human body’s eventual
decay, noting that Polonius will be eaten by worms, that even kings
are eaten by worms, and that dust from the decayed body of Alexander
the Great might be used to stop a hole in a beer barrel.
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