Hamlet
Es. 1
1. What is the name of the castle where the story is set? Elsinore.
2. What appears to the sentries? The ghost of Hamlet’s father.
3. What nationality is Fortinbras? Norwegian
4. Who is Horatio? Hamlet’s friend.
5. How was Hamlet’s father killed? The murderer, Claudius, poured poison in his ear
while he was sleeping in his orchard.
6. What is the cause of Hamlet’s madness, according to Polonius? His love for his
daughter Ophelia.
7. What is the title of the play performed at court? The Murder of Gonzago.
8. Who plans for Hamlet to be killed once he arrives in England? Claudius.
9. Does Ophelia die by sword, poison or drowning? She drowns herself.
10. How does Hamlet die? In a duel arranged by Claudius, Laertes wounds Hamlet with
the poisoned tip of his sword.
Es. 2
1. What were probably the reasons for Shakespeare’s choice of Denmark as the setting
of the play? It was a Protestant country like England and it was near Norway.
2. What are the features of Hamlet’s language? The most striking characteristic of
Hamlet’s language is its ambiguity. He uses metaphor, simile and, above all,
wordplay. His words have a hidden meaning, they have, therefore, enormous
affinities with the language of the unconscious which proceeds equally through
various forms of distortion and alterations in meaning.
3. What does Hamlet complain about and what are the causes of his melancholy? He
complains about the fact that he has to play roles that he does not believe in. He is
the [non]-revenger in a revenge play, the [non]-heir to the throne, the [non]-lover of
the heroine, the [non]-son to the [non]-father. The shock Hamlet receives on the
death of his father and re-marriage of his mother is the cause of his melancholy.
4. What themes are linked to the theme of revenge? They are themes that are central to
humanity: the relationships between father and son, mother and son, and Hamlet and
his friends, love relationships, madness, youth and age, action and inaction, the
corruption linked to power, the existence of God and a life after death, the meaning of
the theatre itself. Hamlet is a play of life and death and of man’s ambiguous
relationship with both. It is also about melancholy and doubt.
5. What is a major question in the play? The relation between ‘appearance and reality’.
6. What is the function of the ‘play within the play’? It is wanted by Hamlet to expose his
father’s murderer. Furthermore, it is a most interesting expedient because it turns the
actors into an audience.
7. Can Hamlet be regarded as a revenge tragedy? Why? Yes, it can. It contains all the
typical elements of the revenge tragedy: a violent crime committed against a family
member of the hero, the hero’s period of doubt which involves complex planning, the
appearance of a ghost to get the avenger to carry out the task, the avenger’s
