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HAMLET
The character of Hamlet is one of the most intensely debated questions in literary criticism. In part this is because the famous soliloquies of psychological meditation, like "to be or not to be" speech, suggest a person of great psychological complexity. Then there is the many-sided nature of the character: in Hamlet Shakespeare combines a series of stock theatrical figures: revenger, philosopher, satirist, aristocratic and so on, and yet at the same time he manages to make him seem a single individual. Hamlet is a noble prince always polite, elegant and brave. But he is also a revenger: savage, obsessed, single-minded, and at the same time a "malcontent": a satirical critic of the corruption of the world. He is an ambitious man disappointed in his hopes, or a rejected lover, who speaks in an ironic tone about the futility of human life and he is often dressed black.
Hamlet is also a complex figure because he does notact, or at least not immediately. There are a lot of theories about Hamlet's delay. Early audiences probably admired Hamlet as the heroic man of action who has the courage to speak with the ghost when his friends advise him to keep away; the cunning revenger who traps Claudius through the "mousetrap"plot; the fencer who defeats the expert Laertes.
Romantic critics, on the other hand, saw him as the archetype of inaction. Romantic theories tend to overlook moments in which Hamlet is very far from philosophical detachment: in his savage refusal to kill Claudius at prayer, because his soul might escape damnation; in the killing of Polonius or of Rosencrantz and Guildestern, in his escape from the ship and his dramatic challenge to laertes at the funeral of Ophelia.
A more convincing interpretation is that Hamlet wants to behave in a noble way, to be seen to be noble: he is concerned about what others will think of him. Infact his last words are instructions to Horatio to tell his story: at all costs his reputation must be saved.
CLAUDIUS
Claudius is the brother of old Hamlet,the king of Denmark,so he is also Hamlet's uncle. After the death of old Hamlet, he became king by marrying Gertrude,old Hamlet's wife.This remarriage is considered incestuous by all the people of Denmark and especially by young Hamlet.This remarriage has got only a purpose:history has a long tradition of people who have become an important leader by marrying a person of great power.Claudius is the murderer of his brother and he is nominated by him a (act I ,scene V, v 39).The snake is used to allude to a person that is nothing (as the snake lives in the dust) but this person would do everything for himself to become a man with a lot of power.Claudius uses Gertrude to impose orders to his son Hamlet, actually Hamlet doesn't consider Claudius. Claudius hides all his actions concerning the throne of Denmark from Gertrude, he discusses about these situations only with Polonius, his reliable adviser.Claudius is scared to death by Hamlet. He suspects that the young prince knows everything about the death of old Hamlet, so he treats him with respect pretending not to hear the offences Hamlet gives him. As Polonius asks someone to spy on his son Laertes, Claudius is using people to try to provide him with information about young Hamlet.Hamlet knows that, so he calls Claudius >(act III,scene II,vv 239-240) alluding to the play The Mousetrap.
GERTRUDE
Gertrude is the Queen of Denmark( I.ii. 67), the widow of the former king and Hamlet’s mother. She is a devoted mother and an affectionate and obedient wife, yet she is described as a libidinous sinner by Hamlet and the ghost simply because she remarries after her first husband's death(II.ii.). She tries to encourage Hamlet to do what Claudius suggests, but Hamlet reacts hysterically (III.iv.). His accusations are unfounded because Gertrude may be guilty of nothing more serious than marrying Claudius. The king describes her as "our sometime sister, now our queen". She appears with her new husband, the king, as he justifies their marriage to the court. Gertrude tells Hamlet that her material or sexual conduct is none of his business and agrees to forgo any further physical relationship with Claudius. Gertrude allows Hamlet to project a guilt and shame into her that had previously been absent, or at the very least repressed. And where does Hamlet obtain the testimony Queen Gertrude is nice enough to offer her own napkin to her son, to wipe his "brow". However, she then drinks out of the cup intended for Hamlet(V.ii.298). Not only is this unwise, it would also seem to be a bit rude. Perhaps she is nervous. Perhaps she is truly concerned for her son’s welfare. Perhaps Gertrude is weak, because she hasn’t the courage to defy her husband, sign, of the patriarchal authority in Elizabethan society, and sanctify she as victim of male arrogance. In Gertrude’s case, it’s probably right: everything she says expresses her concern for her husband and her son.
POLONIUS
Polonius, Lord Chamberlain, Ophelia and Laertes’s father, is a powerful politician, he is the only significant member of Claudius’s retinue, he is his chief adviser. Shakespeare presents him as a man whose desire to serve the king is rooted as much in vanity and a sense of his own importance as in duty. The play shows parents controlling their children’s lives. Like the Ghost, Polonus is an authoritarian father who demands unconditional obedience but as well as presenting Polonius as authoritarian Shakespeare also presents him as sordid. In Act I scene 3, Polonius’s objection to Hamlet’s suit is that he has not offered a high enough price. In the scene that follows, Shakespeare leaves us in no doubt about how we should see Polonius’s abuse of his daughter. In Act II scene 2 he says he will "loose" her to Hamlet, like live bait. There follows an unconscious pun on the word "board / bawd" and it is at this point that Hamlet calls Polonius a "fishmonger" which, unlike the audience, the old man does not realize is Elizabethan slang for "pimp".
Polonius shows no interest in either of his children’s views or feelings. Having given Laertes "leave to go", a paternal blessing and a list of moral instructions to follow, we see him sending a spy to Paris to try and catch him misbehaving. Shakespeare also uses the character of Polonius to parody Hamlet’s habits : his love of wordplay and his tendency to "think too precisely", "to consider to curiously". Shakespeare generates rich comedy when Polonius regularly gets lost in tedious qualifications, elaborations and cirumlocutions. Polonius is like a Hamlet gone senile, a comic version of the Prince’s tragic sense of the complexity of things. Later in Act II scene 2, Shakespeare also presents Polonius as a pedant: "the best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral".
Shakespeare also presents Polonius as a meddler when we see him in the queen’s rooms.
OPHELIA
Ophelia is Polonius’ daughter. She is the most innocent victim of Hamlet’s revenge. Attracted by her sweet beauty after the depressing event of his father’s death, Hamlet has fallen in love with her. But when her father challenges the honour of Hamlet’s intentions, Ophelia can only reply: " I do not know, my lord, what I should think" (act I, scene iii). Used to relying upon her father’s direction and brought up to be obedient, she can only accept her father’s belief, seconded by that of her brother, that Hamlet’s vows of love have only been designed for her seduction and obeys her father’s orders not to permit Hamlet to see her again.
When his mother’s hasty remarriage leads Hamlet to the disillusioned view that "frailty, thy name is woman", Ophelia’s affection might yet restore his spirit. But her unexplained refusal to see him soon after his mother’s remarriage completes Hamlet's disillusionment with women. Ophelia is still too much under the influence of her father to question his wise authority, and she has no mind of her own to understand how she has made her love suffer. As she cannot believe that her father’s orders are wrong, all she can see in the prince's present behaviour is the madness of which the whole court is talking and which terrifies her. Then Polonius orders her to meet Hamet at a place where he and the King can observe their meeting. Her hopes for this meeting are raised, however, by the Queen’s kind statement to her that she hopes that Ophelia might cure him and that they might get married. Ophelia accepts to see Hamlet because she wants to help him; after a hopeful beginning, Ophelia ruins her chances by the foolish feminine strategy of accusing Hamlet of rejecting her. Then, he launches an ever more savage attack against her, telling her to go to a nunnery: "Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?" (act III, scene i).
When that night her father is mysteriously killed and then obscurely buried in great haste, it is too much for her. Abused by her lover, bereft of her father’s protection, alone and overcome by the sense of her dishonour and that of her father, she loses control of her mind.
HORATIO
Horatio is a friend of Hamlet’s. He lives in Elsinor. This character appears in acts I (i,13 - 69),IV (v, 1 - 35) and V (i, 195 - 289). In the first act Horatio and the guards see the ghost of the dead king appear; at the beginning, the ghost walks off apparently offended by Horatio’s words. After another apparition of the ghost Horatio decides to tell Hamlet what he has seen. Later on, in act five, Horatio and Hamlet talk to a gravedigger about death and corruption. Afterwards Horatio and Hamlet suspect a trap organised by Claudius, but they react differently. In fact, Hamlet wants to fight with Laertes but Horatio is more reflective and gives Hamlet some advice about the duel. At the end he is given a very important role: to report the truth, that Claudius killed his brother, the old king of Denmark. At the beginning of the play this character can be compared with Marcellus. In fact, when they see the ghost appear, they have two different reactions: Marcellus is a bit superstitious and a bit frightened, Horatio instead is sceptical because he thinks it’s an optical illusion or a hallucination. For this reason he is rational, too. In the last part we see Horatio be solicitous because he worries about Hamlet’s health. Horatio is presented to us as utterly dependable, well educated, stoical, dispassionate and devout, but far removed from the revenge hero. Of all the major characters he remains uncontaminated by corruption in Elsinore. When the Mousetrap breaks up and Hamlet clearly wishes his friend to proise his stage management and confirm that Claudius’s behaviour was suspicious, Horatio is scrupulously impartial. Essentially static, Horatio expresses no affections save those revealed at the end for the prince he bravely attempts to join in death.
LAERTES
Laertes is Polonius’s son, Ophelia’s brother and he appears in acts I (ii,1-63, iii,1-83 ), IV (v, 112 - 135) and V (i, 137-219 - ii ,250 - 337). The first time when Laertes appears he is going to leave for Paris; before he goes he gives his sister some cynical advice about Hamlet: that a prince like Hamlet cannot choose his wife freely. In act four, Laertes comes back to Elsinore to discover who killed his father to revenge him. When Laertes sees his sister’s condition he becomes even more enraged. In act five Laertes goes to Ophelia’s funeral; he is furious with Hamlet and makes an exhibition of his grief. Later Laertes, thinking that Hamlet is guilty of his father’s and his sister’s death, engages a mortal duel with Hamlet. It ends with the death of both. This character looks very cynical, protective, determined and impulsive. We can note that Laertes is cynical and protective in the dialogue with his sister; in fact he thinks only to his profits with respect to Hamlet but he worries about his sister’s conditions. We can compare Laertes situation with Hamlet’s. In fact, Laertes’s and Hamlet’s fathers were killed, both have decided to revenge them but in two different ways: Hamlet tries to reflect, Laertes instead, looks more impulsive and determined in his intentions. A striking contrast between Prince Hamlet and Laertes is established on their first appearance in the play; it is elaborated and developed in acts four and five when the revengeful Laertes first challenges the King and then becomes his accomplice in the plot that kills the Prince. Laertes is more a set of attitudes than a psychologically elaborated character. In the final stages of the tragedy he speaks and behaves as an uncomplicated revenge-hero, explicitly brushing aside almost all the moral objections that have prevented Hamlet from playing the role. In the graveyard scene Shakespeare contrasts the simplicity of Hamlet’s words ("I loved Ophelia"), with her brother’s verbose theatricality. Laertes distress sounds simulated; his language is mannered, overdone and melodramatic. Laertes is the instrument of Claudius’ treachery in the exciting swordfight which precipitates the final catastrophe.
THE GHOST
The ghost’s apparition is the event that makes the plot start. His apparition unchains different reactions between the people who see it. The first ones who see it are the guards Marcellus and Barnardo: they can’t explain themselves what it could be. They decide to tell Horatio about it, who doesn’t believe it at first: he thinks it could be an imaginary fear of the two guards. After seeing it Horatio thinks that the ghost could be:
-a hallucination (I.i.127),so it shouldn’t exist and they should ignore it;
-a portent of imminent catastrophes or disasters (I.i.133-135) and they should listen to it;
-a soul returned from Purgatory by divine permission to perform some unfinished task (I.i.131-132) and they should obey it;
-an evil spirit (I.i.127) and they should treat it.
When the ghost appears to Hamlet, it tells him it was a soul coming from Purgatory and asks Hamlet to revenge him because he was killed by Claudius. Hamlet doubts what the ghost has just told him and he tries to prove the truth of the ghost’s words with a the performance of a play.
MARCELLUS, BARNARDO, FRANCISCO
They are the soldiers of the guard of the royal Palace of the King of Denmark. They appear at the beginning of the scene and they are the first ones who see the ghost. Francisco is a marginal character in the plot and he doesn’t know about the existence of the ghost. Unlike Francisco, Barnardo sees the ghost, but he isn’t very important in the history and in its development. Marcellus is the most important. In fact, he informs Horatio of the apparitions and accompanies him to see the ghost. During the meeting with the ghost, Marcellus gets him to speak and he tries to hit it but the ghost disappears because a cock crows. Marcellus, being superstitious, believes the ghost is an evil spirit. He is certain the ghost will speak to him.
FORTINBRAS
Fortinbras, the prince of Norway, has decided to invade Denmark to recover the lands lost by his father. His father was killed by old king Hamlet 30 years before and Denmark took possession of a part of Norway. Like king Hamlet, king Fortinbras has been succeeded as king not by his son but by his brother. The movements of both nephews are controlled by their uncles; in fact, Claudius, at the beginning of the story, writes to the king of Norway to suppress young Fortinbras’s threatened invasion of Denmark. At the end of the play he has more than realised his ambition . He has become king of Denmark, after the duel between Hamlet and Laertes in which Hamlet, Claudius, Laertes, and Gertrude died.
ROSENCRANTZ & GUILDENSTERN
Rosencrantz and Guilderstern, two old university friends of Hamlet's, are entrusted by Claudius to spy on Hamlet and to understand if his madness is true or false. Hamlet, immediately, makes them confess that they were spying on him, as Claudius asked them to do. They justify their visit saying that they want to see him, but, because of the confession, Hamlet can confirm his suspect: now he is sure enough to think that Claudius is conspiring against his life.
The Gravediggers
The scene with the Gravediggers (V, i , 166 - 184 ) strikes particularly because it includes both comical and melancholy elements side by side and it is used to strike all the audience. In this scene Hamlet is in a graveyard where two men are digging Ophelia’s grave: they are the Gravediggers. In the text one of them speaks with Hamlet about corpses and he shows him the skull of Yorick, the King’s jester. Hamlet remembers when Yorick was alive and so he understands that all the people, like Yorick, must die and putrefy. This represents the "rotten of Denmark" and of the people’s souls in Elsinore.
The Actors
The actors arrive at Elsinore (II, ii) and immediately Hamlet asks the main actor to recite a melodramatic speech about the killing of Priam of Troy and the despair of his wife Hecuba. After a while, Polonius interrupts him, saying that the speech is too long, but Hamlet makes him continue, then Polonius still interrupts him definitively so Hamlet dismiss them.
The day after ( III, ii ) Hamlet uses them to play "The Mouse-trap" to confirm his suspects about his father’s killer.
The actors are certainly playing parts, but almost everyone watching their performance is playing a part too; they are acting out a "play within the play" before an audience of amateur actors: spies, plotters and hypocrites and probably they think that the play could offence the King and the Queen. And this performance is interrupted too.