Act I
1. What is the Ghost wearing when he come on stage? When before, according to Horatio, had he been seen wearing it?

He is wearing armor, which he wore when he fought the king of Norway.

2. Marcellus asks someone to “tell me…/Why this same strict and most observant watch/ So nightly toils the subject of the land…” What is the
answer?
Hamlet had won territories from “old King Fortinbras”, who he had killed. King Fortinbras’s son is trying to gain them back with the help of “thugs”.

3. What story from the past does Horatio relate?

4. What makes the ghost disappear?
At first it is thought that it is because of the violence threats, but then they notice it was because of the rooster crowing.

5. Note all of the different matters of court business that Claudius attends to at the opening of 1.2. How does he try to comfort Hamlet? Does it work?
He tells him to get over it- that all fathers die. He comments on Hamlet’s manliness and says mourning is useless. This does not work, and Hamlet shows great depression, exhibiting desires for suicide.

6. In Hamlet’s first soliloquy (“O that this too too solid flesh would melt…”), what does he tell the audience is so upsetting to him?

It upsets him that his mother remarried so soon after his father’s death, even after he had shown so much mourn.

7. “Foul deeds will rise,/ Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes” (~1.2.256-­‐7) What does Hamlet mean by this?
His father’s death or something before his death seems suspicious- and the truth has yet to be revealed.

8. What advice do both Laertes and Polonius give to Ophelia?
They told her to be careful with Hamlet and do not let herself go so easily. She is told that he is not good for her, and to have self-respect.

9. What is particularly “foul, strange, and unnatural” about King Hamlet I’s death? (see 1.5)

That it was not a murder by a snake, like everyone thinks. In fact, it was his uncle.

10. What does Hamlet write down after seeing the ghost? Where does he write it?
“So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word.”

He writes it in his notebook. He intends to keep his father’svow.

11. To what oath does Hamlet make Horatio and Marcellus swear?

They swear to his sword that they wouldn’t tell anyone of the ghost.

Act II
1. What is Polonius employing Reynaldo to do? What instructions does he give to him?

The task is to deliver money and letters to Laertes.

To ask about Laertes’s behavior before he goes and visits. He was instructed to ask I a way that includes young men bad habits in order to figure out Laertes’s behavior outside of home.

2. What report of Hamlet’s behavior does Ophelia give to Polonius in 2.1? What
specifically does she tell him about how he was acting? What other words are used to describe Hamlet’s behavior (especially his actions) throughout these acts? When Hamlet appears in 2.2, how would you characterize his speech?
She mentions how he acted strange in an instance where “he [fell] to such perusal of my face as he would draw it. Long stayed he so.” She mentioned how she had stopped interacting with him, and how there was the possibility that he was acting crazily because of her sudden ignoring.

3. What news does King Claudius receive from Norway in 2.2? What is the status of the impending invasion from act 1?
The king of Norway stopped Fotinbras’s (his nephew’s) plans against Denmark. In addition, Fortinbras was arrested and swore to never threaten Denmark again. He did, however gain permission to lead his soldiers into Poland, and assured Claudius of his safety.

4. What speech does Hamlet ask the Player to perform in 2.2? What event in history/literature is being recounted in this speech? Who is Pyrrhus?

The one where Aeneas told Dido about Priam’s murder in the poem epic The Aeneid, from Rome. It is referring to the end of the Trojan War, when Pyrrhus came to Troy to avenge his father’s death by killing Priam, king of Troy. Pyrrhus is the son of the Greek hero Achilles.

5. In his second soliloquy (“O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I”), what is Hamlet’s response to the player’s speech? What aspect of the Player’s speech does he specifically comment on?

He feels bad for the player because the player was feeling emotions that meant nothing, because it was not real. He comments on Hecuba, who is the queen of Troy and the wife of Priam, specifically on how she was torned by the death of her husband.