Hamlet

topic posted Thu, October 6, 2005 - 3:55 PM by  JM
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I'm lazy...
Does Hamlet finally kill his mother, or does someone else do it?
Does he finally kill Claudius, or does someone else do it?
posted by:
JM
offline JM
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  • Re: Hamlet

    Thu, October 6, 2005 - 5:47 PM
    "I'm lazy..."

    Shocking Josh! Just shocking! Do you let your students use that excuse?!? ;-p

    Ok, the really really short version: Claudius arranges a duel between Laertes and Hamlet and to make certain Hamlet loses, tips Laertes sword with poison. Just in case that isn't enough and Hamlet somehow squeaks through, he also poisons the victory cup. Gertrude, toasting Hamlet, drinks from the poisoned cup (Claudius does, feebly, attempt to stop her) and dies exclaiming: "O my dear Hamlet-The drink, the drink! I am poison'd." Laertes manages to scratch Hamlet with the posioned sword but then in a scuffle they exchange swords and Hamlet wounds Laertes. Knowing he's going to die, Laertes exposes Claudius' guilt and Hamlet stabs Claudius with that same poisoned sword. Claudius dies. Laertes dies, and then, after imploring Horatio to tell Fortinbras everything, Hamlet (finally! By now the audience is surely thoroughly sick of the self-absorbed misogynist wanker) dies.

    The end.

    MT
  • Re: Hamlet

    Thu, October 6, 2005 - 9:18 PM
    • JM
      JM
      offline 98

      Re: Hamlet

      Fri, October 7, 2005 - 2:49 AM
      Thanks. I know I'm terrible. All I could remember was a bunch of running around and screaming at the end.

      2 more questions:
      To what extent is Gertrude involved in Hamlet's father's death?
      And, does Hamlet at any point consider killing his mother, AND Caludius? Or is it always just Claudius?
      • Re: Hamlet

        Fri, October 7, 2005 - 5:28 AM
        Excellent MT! You should submit that to Book-a-Minute or something.

        Can you do King Lear too?
        • Re: Hamlet

          Fri, October 7, 2005 - 11:49 PM
          Thanks for the praise, Shannon and I'm Spartacus!

          I'm afraid, since that was only a synopsis of the last act, it's not quite Book-A-Minute material ;-)

          Wasn't there a theatrical group around a few years ago that toured the US presenting ALL of Shakespeare's plays in a single evening? I heard that show was pretty damn amusing but, alas, never did get a chance to see it.
      • Re: Hamlet

        Fri, October 7, 2005 - 7:14 PM
        "All I could remember was a bunch of running around and screaming at the end."

        LOL!!! Time for you to rent the Olivier film, my friend.

        Gertrude's gulit, if any, is never established as far as I recall. I know my own feeling on last reading the play thoroughly was that Claudius, and only Claudius, was guilty of murder and Gertrude's primary "sins" appear to have been weakness, a love of prestige, or perhaps lust.

        As to Hamlet threatening his mother, even in Act 3, Scene 4 (the scene in Gertrude's private apartments, during which Hamlet kills the spying Polonius) Hamlet never directly threatens Gertrude's life. In fact, while he attempts strenuously to shame her, he pretty much ends the scene by simply begging her not to lie in Claudius' bed that night. It's Claudius' death that he relentlessly pursues throughout the play-everything else is incidental.
        • JM
          JM
          offline 98

          Re: Hamlet

          Sat, October 8, 2005 - 4:05 AM
          Thanks a lot, M!
          I was just trying to figure out why Orestes went after his mother and Hamlet didn't... that makes sense.

          Did once see a '4-minute Hamlet.'
          • JM
            JM
            offline 98

            Re: Hamlet

            Sat, October 8, 2005 - 9:28 AM
            Oh... I see you already knew that from the Mythology tribe.
            Not only are you fast, you're everywhere...
          • Re: Hamlet

            Sat, October 8, 2005 - 11:35 AM
            hilarious -- I also caught a 4-Minute Hamlet at a renaissance fair years ago --> and then the actors did a REVERSE 90-Second Hamlet that had us all crying with laughter!
          • Re: Hamlet

            Sun, October 9, 2005 - 6:58 AM
            Ghost to Hamlet (1.5):

            Let not the royal bed of Denmark be
            A couch for luxury and damned incest. [what a sad-sack -- my own interjection]
            But howsomever thou pursuest this act,
            Taint not thy mind nor let thy soul contrive
            Against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven,
            And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge
            To prick and sting her.

            Proof that:
            a) Hamlet is under strict instructions by this ghost to not touch his mother
            b) The ghost doesn't want Hamlet to get any fun out of life.

            Regarding what Gertrude knows, I think the crux lies in these lines (and the way they are delivered) from Act II scene ii:

            King: He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found
            The head and source of all your son's distemper.
            Queen: I doubt it is no other but the main,
            His father's death and our o'er-hasty marriage.

            See? It's no wonder Hamlet loves his mother so. She's so perceptive, yet so ambiguous! What skill, what tact! She's a real seventeenth century politician, that woman, I tell ya.

            By the way, you asked me a question a while back about where my job is. I meant to answer, Josh, that I'm here in North Dakota... I've been buried in work -- and snow -- this October. Charming stuff, snow in October. I remember when we used to joke about Christmas in April, but all that was a joke.

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