Context — read this first: Shakespeare wrote Hamlet around 1600–1601, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. It is widely considered the greatest play in the English language and the most analyzed literary work in history. The play is set in medieval Denmark but reflects Elizabethan concerns about succession, corruption at court, and the nature of justice. Several things are essential to understand before reading: (1) Revenge tragedy was a popular Elizabethan genre — audiences expected a ghost, a murder, and eventual bloody revenge. Shakespeare both uses and subverts these conventions. (2) Hamlet is unique because the hero cannot simply act — he thinks, doubts, philosophizes, and delays. The question of why he delays is the central interpretive debate of the play. (3) Every major character dies by the end — this is not a spoiler but a feature of Shakespearean tragedy. Understanding who kills whom and why is essential for any exam.
1 · Quick Overview
Author
William Shakespeare
Setting
Elsinore Castle, Denmark
Tragic flaw
Indecision / over-thinking
Central question
"To be or not to be"
AP Lit appearances
12+ times
Key literary devices — exam essential
Soliloquy: A speech delivered alone on stage, revealing a character's private thoughts directly to the audience. Hamlet has seven major soliloquies — more than almost any other Shakespearean character. They reveal his intelligence, doubt, grief, and moral paralysis. The most important: "To be or not to be" (Act 3), "O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I" (Act 2), and "How all occasions do inform against me" (Act 4).
Foil characters: Characters who contrast with Hamlet to highlight his qualities. Laertes is a foil — he also loses his father to murder but acts immediately and without doubt. Fortinbras is a foil — he leads an army for a cause of pure honor without philosophical hesitation. Both show Hamlet what he is not.
The play-within-a-play ("The Mousetrap"): Hamlet stages a performance that recreates his father's murder to observe Claudius's reaction. This is "dramatic irony" — the audience knows what the play means, and watches Hamlet watching Claudius watching the play. It is one of Shakespeare's most sophisticated theatrical constructions.
Appearance vs. reality: Almost nothing in the play is what it appears. Denmark appears prosperous but is rotting. Claudius appears a good king but is a murderer. Hamlet appears mad but is largely sane. Polonius appears wise but is foolish. Ophelia appears simple but is deeply damaged.
Corruption and disease imagery: Throughout the play, Denmark is described using images of rot, disease, and infection. "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark." The corruption begins with Claudius's murder and spreads outward through the entire court.
2 · Characters
Prince Hamlet
Protagonist · Prince of Denmark
A philosophy student at Wittenberg University, called home by his father's death. Brilliant, sensitive, and morally serious — but paralyzed by doubt and over-thinking. His delay in avenging his father's murder drives the entire plot. He is also genuinely grieving, deeply angry, and possibly experiencing something close to a mental breakdown. By the end he accepts death and fate with calm resignation.
King Claudius
Antagonist · Hamlet's uncle · King
Hamlet's uncle who murdered King Hamlet by pouring poison in his ear while he slept, then married the widowed Queen Gertrude and took the throne. He is politically skilled, genuinely loves Gertrude, and is capable of real guilt — he attempts to pray and cannot, knowing his repentance is incomplete because he will not give up what he gained. He is not a cartoon villain; he is a corrupt but fully human figure.
Queen Gertrude
Hamlet's mother · Claudius's wife
Married Claudius within two months of her first husband's death — a fact that disgusts Hamlet more than almost anything else. Whether she knew about the murder is never made clear — Shakespeare deliberately leaves this ambiguous. She loves both Hamlet and Claudius. She dies accidentally drinking the poisoned wine meant for Hamlet.
Horatio
Hamlet's closest friend · Witness
Hamlet's loyal friend from Wittenberg. Calm, rational, and honest — everything Hamlet struggles to be. Hamlet trusts Horatio completely. At the end, Hamlet asks Horatio to "report me and my cause aright" — to survive and tell the true story. Horatio is the only major character who survives the final scene.
Ophelia
Hamlet's love interest · Polonius's daughter
A young, obedient woman caught between her father's commands and her feelings for Hamlet. Hamlet treats her cruelly during his "mad" behavior, denying he ever loved her. After her father Polonius is killed by Hamlet, she goes genuinely mad — distributing flowers with symbolic meanings, singing fragments of songs. She drowns, in what is left ambiguous as accident or suicide.
Polonius
Lord Chamberlain · Claudius's counselor
A pompous, long-winded courtier who loves the sound of his own advice. He controls Ophelia completely and uses her to spy on Hamlet for Claudius. He is accidentally killed by Hamlet when Hamlet stabs him through an arras (curtain), thinking he is Claudius. His death sets off the chain of events leading to the final catastrophe.
Laertes
Ophelia's brother · Hamlet's foil
Polonius's son. When he learns his father was killed by Hamlet and his sister has gone mad, he immediately returns from France and vows violent revenge — no doubt, no philosophy, no delay. He is Hamlet's most direct foil: the same situation (murdered father), completely different response (immediate action vs. prolonged indecision). He and Claudius conspire to kill Hamlet with a poisoned sword in a rigged duel.
The Ghost of King Hamlet
Hamlet's father · Murdered king
Appears to Hamlet on the battlements and reveals that Claudius murdered him by pouring poison in his ear. Commands Hamlet to avenge his death but spare Gertrude. Whether the Ghost is genuinely the spirit of Hamlet's father or a devil sent to tempt Hamlet into damnation is a question Hamlet himself raises — and one reason he delays acting.
Fortinbras
Prince of Norway · Foil to Hamlet
Prince of Norway whose father was killed by King Hamlet. He leads an army across Denmark to reclaim territory. He acts decisively and without philosophical hesitation. He arrives at Elsinore after all the principals are dead, surveys the carnage, and takes the Danish throne. His arrival at the end represents the restoration of order — practical action succeeding where philosophical indecision failed.
3 · Core Themes
1
Revenge, justice, and the moral cost of action
Hamlet is commanded by his father's ghost to take revenge on Claudius. But Hamlet is a philosopher, not a soldier — he cannot simply act. He questions whether the Ghost is trustworthy, whether revenge is morally justified, whether he might be damning himself by acting. The play does not endorse simple revenge — by the end, everyone is dead. Hamlet achieves justice, but it costs everything. Shakespeare asks: is revenge ever truly just, and what does pursuing it cost the pursuer?
2
Corruption and moral decay — "something is rotten"
The murder of King Hamlet is the original corruption — one act of fratricide and usurpation that poisons the entire Danish court. Claudius's crime spreads: Polonius becomes a spy, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern betray their friend, Ophelia is used as a tool, Gertrude is compromised by her marriage. The rot metaphor runs throughout — Denmark is a garden overrun with weeds. Hamlet's task is not just personal revenge but the cleansing of a corrupt state.
3
Death, mortality, and the meaning of existence
"To be or not to be" is the most famous expression of this theme — is it nobler to suffer life's pain or to end it? The graveyard scene (Act 5) forces Hamlet to confront death physically — holding Yorick's skull, recognizing that even Alexander the Great ends as dust. By Act 5 Hamlet has achieved a kind of peace with mortality: "The readiness is all." He accepts that death will come when it comes, and stops trying to control it. This acceptance is his final character development.
4
Appearance vs. reality — acting and deception
The play is saturated with performance and deception. Hamlet performs madness. Claudius performs grief for his brother. Polonius performs wisdom. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern perform friendship while spying. The Players perform a play within a play. Even Ophelia's madness is real while everything around her is performed. Shakespeare uses this theme to ask: in a world where everyone is performing, how can you know what is real? Hamlet's inability to act is partly his inability to decide what is genuine.
5
Women, powerlessness, and betrayal
Both major female characters — Gertrude and Ophelia — are defined by their relationships to men and have virtually no agency. Ophelia is controlled by her father, used by Claudius, rejected by Hamlet, and destroyed by circumstances entirely outside her control. Gertrude's choices are deeply constrained by the political realities of court. Hamlet's rage at his mother ("Frailty, thy name is woman") reflects his broader misogyny but also his grief and sense of betrayal. Shakespeare gives both women moments of genuine humanity within their constrained circumstances.
4 · Plot Summary
Act 1 — The ghost · the revelation
Act 1, Sc. 1–2Denmark · Hamlet's grief · the ghost appears
The play opens on the battlements of Elsinore Castle, Denmark. Guards report that the ghost of the recently deceased King Hamlet has been seen walking at night. Prince Hamlet is at court, mourning his father deeply. Within two months of his father's death, his mother Queen Gertrude has married his uncle Claudius, who has taken the throne. Hamlet is disgusted by the marriage and consumed by grief — but cannot yet explain why he feels something is deeply wrong.
Horatio tells Hamlet about the ghost. That night, Hamlet goes to the battlements and the ghost appears. It identifies itself as the spirit of his father and reveals the truth: Claudius murdered him by pouring a vial of poison into his ear while he slept in his garden. The ghost commands Hamlet to avenge the murder but to leave Gertrude to heaven — do not harm her. Hamlet swears revenge.
"The time is out of joint. O cursed spite, / That ever I was born to set it right!"
— William Shakespeare, Hamlet (c. 1601), Act 1, Scene 5 · Hamlet after the Ghost's revelation — his sense of burden and destiny
Act 1, Sc. 3–5Laertes · Ophelia · Polonius
Laertes is leaving for France and warns his sister Ophelia to be cautious of Hamlet's affections — Hamlet is a prince and cannot freely choose his own wife. Their father Polonius forbids Ophelia from seeing Hamlet, convinced Hamlet is merely toying with her. Ophelia obeys. These early scenes establish Ophelia's complete lack of agency — she is controlled by the men around her and has no power to protect herself.
Acts 2–3 — The mousetrap · the killing of Polonius
Act 2Hamlet's "madness" · the players arrive
Hamlet decides to feign madness — to pretend to be mentally unstable as cover while he investigates Claudius. His behavior becomes erratic and cruel: he treats Ophelia brutally, telling her to "get thee to a nunnery" and denying he ever loved her. Polonius is convinced Hamlet is mad from love of Ophelia. Claudius is less certain and sends Hamlet's old friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on him. Hamlet sees through them almost immediately.
A traveling theater company arrives. Hamlet asks them to perform a play called "The Murder of Gonzago" — which he has modified to include a scene recreating his father's murder. His plan: "The play's the thing / Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king." He will observe Claudius's reaction to confirm his guilt before acting.
Act 3, Sc. 1"To be or not to be"
Claudius and Polonius hide behind an arras to spy on Hamlet as he encounters Ophelia. Hamlet delivers the most famous soliloquy in all of literature — contemplating whether it is nobler to endure life's suffering or to end it with death. He identifies what stops people from suicide: the fear of "the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns" — the unknown afterlife. He concludes that conscience (overthinking) makes cowards of us all.
"To be, or not to be, that is the question: / Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles / And by opposing end them."
— William Shakespeare, Hamlet (c. 1601), Act 3, Scene 1 · Hamlet's most famous soliloquy — on death, suffering, and the cost of thought
Act 3, Sc. 2–4The Mousetrap · Claudius confirmed · Polonius killed
The players perform "The Mousetrap." When the actor-king is poisoned in his garden, Claudius rises abruptly, calls for lights, and leaves. Hamlet is jubilant — the Ghost's account is confirmed. He finds Claudius alone, apparently praying. He raises his sword to kill him — then stops. He reasons that killing Claudius while he is at prayer would send his soul to heaven; he wants to kill him in a moment of sin to ensure his damnation. He sheathes his sword and leaves. This is one of the most debated moments in all of Shakespeare — is Hamlet's reasoning genuine theology, or another excuse to delay?
Hamlet goes to his mother's chamber to confront her. Behind the arras, Polonius is hiding, listening. Gertrude cries out in fear; Polonius echoes her cry from behind the curtain. Hamlet, believing it is Claudius, draws his sword and stabs through the arras. Polonius falls dead. Hamlet does not show remorse — he calls Polonius a "wretched, rash, intruding fool." The ghost appears again, visible only to Hamlet, urging him to be gentle with Gertrude. Gertrude, seeing Hamlet apparently talking to empty air, becomes convinced he truly is mad.
Acts 4–5 — Exile · Ophelia's madness · the final catastrophe
Act 4Hamlet sent to England · Ophelia's madness · Laertes returns
Claudius sends Hamlet to England with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, carrying secret letters ordering the English king to execute Hamlet immediately on arrival. Hamlet discovers the letters on the ship, rewrites them to order the execution of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern instead, and escapes by boarding a pirate ship that returns him to Denmark. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern go to their deaths without ever understanding why.
Ophelia — her father killed, Hamlet exiled and having rejected her — descends into genuine madness. She wanders the court distributing flowers with symbolic meanings, singing fragmentary songs. She drowns in a brook, in circumstances that leave her death ambiguous: was it accident or did she let herself sink? She is given a partial church burial — the priest refusing full rites because of the ambiguity. Laertes returns from France to find his father dead and his sister mad. He immediately vows revenge against Hamlet and allies himself with Claudius.
Act 5, Sc. 1The graveyard · Yorick's skull
Hamlet and Horatio encounter gravediggers preparing Ophelia's burial. Hamlet picks up a skull — the gravedigger tells him it is Yorick, the king's jester from Hamlet's childhood. Hamlet contemplates the skull — a man he knew and loved, now just bone and dust. He reflects that even great men — Caesar, Alexander the Great — end as nothing. This scene marks a shift in Hamlet: he is more at peace with mortality, less consumed by philosophical paralysis.
Ophelia's funeral procession arrives. Laertes, overcome with grief, leaps into the grave. Hamlet, who loved Ophelia genuinely despite everything, also leaps in. They grapple. Hamlet tells Laertes that his grief for Ophelia matches or exceeds Laertes's own. They are separated.
Act 5, Sc. 2The duel · everyone dies · Fortinbras arrives
Claudius and Laertes devise a plan: a friendly fencing match between Laertes and Hamlet. The tip of Laertes's sword will be poisoned. As a backup, Claudius will poison a cup of wine for Hamlet to drink if Laertes fails to wound him. Hamlet accepts the duel with a new resignation: "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will." He tells Horatio: "The readiness is all."
During the duel, Gertrude drinks from the poisoned cup before Claudius can stop her — she toasts Hamlet's success. Laertes wounds Hamlet with the poisoned sword tip. In the scuffle, the swords are exchanged and Hamlet wounds Laertes with the same poisoned blade. Gertrude collapses and dies, announcing the cup was poisoned. Laertes, dying, tells Hamlet the truth: the sword is poisoned, Claudius is responsible. Hamlet finally stabs Claudius with the poisoned sword and forces him to drink the remaining poisoned wine. Claudius dies. Laertes dies. Hamlet dies — slowly, from the poison — in Horatio's arms.
Hamlet's last words ask Horatio to survive and tell the true story. Fortinbras arrives with his army, surveys four royal corpses, and claims the Danish throne. He orders Hamlet carried off "like a soldier" — honoring him with a military funeral. Horatio will tell the story. The play ends.
"The rest is silence."
— William Shakespeare, Hamlet (c. 1601), Act 5, Scene 2 · Hamlet's final words as he dies in Horatio's arms
5 · Cram Quiz
All answers are visible — read straight through, close the page, walk into your exam.
Q1. Why does Hamlet delay killing Claudius? What are the main reasons?
A. Three main reasons: (1) Uncertainty about the Ghost — Hamlet questions whether the Ghost is truly his father's spirit or a devil sent to tempt him into sin. He stages the play to get independent confirmation of Claudius's guilt. (2) The prayer scene — when he finds Claudius apparently praying, he refuses to kill him, reasoning that killing a man at prayer would send his soul to heaven; he wants Claudius damned. (3) Philosophical paralysis — Hamlet is a thinker, not a man of action. He overthinks every step until the opportunity passes. This paralysis is his tragic flaw.
Q2. What is the "To be or not to be" soliloquy actually about?
A. Hamlet contemplates whether it is nobler to endure life's suffering ("the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune") or to end it through death ("take arms against a sea of troubles / And by opposing end them"). He identifies what prevents suicide: fear of the unknown afterlife — "the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns." He concludes that "conscience" — meaning overthinking and moral uncertainty — "makes cowards of us all." The soliloquy is both a meditation on death and a commentary on his own inability to act.
Q3. How does the play-within-a-play ("The Mousetrap") work and what does it confirm?
A. Hamlet has the traveling players perform a scene that exactly recreates his father's murder — a king poisoned in his garden by his brother. Hamlet watches Claudius's reaction. When the murder scene is performed, Claudius abruptly rises, calls for lights, and leaves the hall. For Hamlet, this reaction confirms the Ghost's account: Claudius is guilty. The device also demonstrates Hamlet's intelligence and indirectness — he uses art and theater as a weapon of investigation rather than acting directly.
Q4. How does Laertes function as a foil to Hamlet?
A. Both Hamlet and Laertes are sons whose fathers have been murdered. Their responses are completely opposite: Hamlet delays, philosophizes, doubts, and spends four acts unable to act. Laertes returns immediately from France, raises a mob, storms the castle, and demands vengeance without a moment's hesitation or doubt. Shakespeare uses Laertes to show what Hamlet could do — and chooses not to. Laertes's immediate action ultimately kills both him and Hamlet through the poisoned sword — suggesting that pure, unthinking revenge is also destructive.
Q5. What happens to Ophelia and why is her fate significant?
A. Ophelia is controlled entirely by the men around her: forbidden by her father to see Hamlet, used by Claudius as a spy, rejected and humiliated by Hamlet, then abandoned when her father is killed and Hamlet exiled. She has no agency throughout the play. She goes genuinely mad after Polonius's death and drowns in a brook — in circumstances that suggest possible suicide but are left ambiguous. Her fate shows the cost of complete powerlessness: she is destroyed not by any choice of her own but by the actions of men who used and discarded her.
Q6. What is significant about the graveyard scene and Yorick's skull?
A. Hamlet picks up the skull of Yorick — the court jester from his childhood — and reflects that even someone who made people laugh, someone he knew personally, is now just bones and dust. He extends this to Alexander the Great and Caesar — all human greatness ends as nothing. This scene marks a turning point in Hamlet's character: he achieves a kind of philosophical acceptance of mortality that he lacked in the earlier soliloquies. His "The readiness is all" in Act 5 grows directly from this moment — he stops fighting death and accepts its inevitability.
Q7. Who dies at the end and how? What is the significance of the multiple deaths?
A. In the final scene: (1) Gertrude drinks from the poisoned wine cup Claudius prepared for Hamlet and dies. (2) Laertes is wounded by his own poisoned sword (exchanged with Hamlet in the duel) and dies. (3) Claudius is stabbed by Hamlet with the poisoned sword and forced to drink the poisoned wine — dies. (4) Hamlet dies from the poison on Laertes's sword. Only Horatio survives. The mass death is the consequence of Claudius's original crime spreading through the entire court — one murder eventually destroys everyone connected to it.
Q8. Essay question: Is Hamlet a hero or a coward? How does Shakespeare make this question unanswerable?
A. Structure around the tension: (1) Evidence for cowardice — Hamlet delays for four acts despite multiple opportunities to kill Claudius. He kills Polonius accidentally and shows little remorse. He treats Ophelia and Gertrude cruelly. He sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their deaths without hesitation. His inaction costs everyone their lives. (2) Evidence for heroism — His caution is morally serious: he refuses to act on uncertain evidence, refuses to commit murder without confirmation. His final acceptance of death is genuinely courageous. His last act — killing Claudius even while dying — completes the task. (3) Shakespeare's method — Shakespeare gives Hamlet the most psychologically complex inner life of any character in literature. He is both deeply admirable and deeply flawed simultaneously. The question is unanswerable because Shakespeare designed Hamlet to be more real than a simple moral category allows. Thesis: Hamlet is not a hero or a coward — he is a human being, which means he is both, at different moments, in ways that cannot be cleanly separated.
About this page: This is a study aid for students. All quotations are clearly attributed to their original sources. For a richer and fuller experience, we encourage you to read the original play.
Quoted work:
· Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare. Written c. 1600–1601. First published 1603 (First Quarto). Public domain. Quotations cited by Act and Scene.
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