Comprehensive list of essay plans for Hamlet - 34 different character/theme plans, each including quotes, context and critical quotes
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Perfect for Edexcel A-Level English Literature revision - helped me get an A*!
OCR A Level English Literature Hamlet Part B essays
OCR A Level English Literature Hamlet Part A essays
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English Literature 2015
Hamlet
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Hamlet Possible Essays
Theme Quotes Context Critics
Hamlet “Was’t Hamlet wronged Laertes? Never Hamlet… Who does it, Henry VIIIs marriage to Catherine of William Hazlitt: The character
then? His madness.” Aragon of Hamlet is relatable: “He is sensible o
Saying he loved Ophelia despite manipulating her and being Links to corruption in Hamlet "with his own weakness, taxes himself with it
cruel – “I loved you not” & “get thee to a nunnery” & “I loved such dexterity to incestuous sheets" and tries to reason himself out of it”
Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers Could not with all their Elizabeth I was Ann Boleyn's Gail Kern Paster: “Hamlet swings
quantity of love Make up my sum” daughter (Henry's second wife) so it between melancholic lethargy and
Ignoring Polonius’s death and his part in Ophelia’s demise – fits that through the character of ineffectual rage”
“intruding fool, farewell. I took thee for thy better”, “outface Hamlet, Shakespeare is condemning Hamner – “(His actions are) unworthy o
me with leaping in her grave?” the marriage between Henry and a hero”
“POLONIUS: What do you read, my lord? Catherine of Aragon to confirm Knight – “(Hamlet is) an element of evil
HAMLET: Words, words, words.” Elizabeth's status as Henry's heir in the state of Denmark”
“You are a fishmonger” and thus supreme ruler. Ernest Jones: “Hamlet cannot carry out
“That’s a fair thought to lie between a maids’ legs” Honour thy father, followed by the murder of Claudius because he
“OSRIC: It is very hot. Thou shalt not kill identifies with him too much. This is
HAMLET: No, believe me, ’tis very cold; the wind is northerly. Hamlet's inability to act, also because Claudius has fulfilled
OSRIC: It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed. encapsulates his helplessness in precisely Hamlets own Oedipal
HAMLET: But yet methinks it is very sultry and hot for my regard to the morally correct course fantasies.”
complexion. of action.
OSRIC: Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry.”
Claudius "Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answer'd? / It will be laid to Hamlet was written at a time when Dawson – “He loved Gertrude deeply
us" there were a number of plots against and genuinely.”
"But we will ship him hence, and this vile deed / We must with all Queen Elizabeth I, suggesting the Mabillard – “(Claudius) is not a monste
our majesty and skill / Both countenance and excuse." vulnerability of the monarch. he is morally weak”
“he present death of Hamlet. Do it, England, / For like the hectic in
my blood he rages, / And thou must cure me."
“’tis unmanly grief”
“How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!…O heavy
burden!”
“O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven.
It hath the primal eldest curse upon ‘it,
A brother’s murder.”
, “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.” (does not regret the
murder because of what it gave him)
Gertrude “yet, within a month (Let me not think on ’t; frailty, thy name is The queen's ambiguous role Heilbrun – “(other critics) fail to see
woman!), A little month, or ere those shoes were old With which emerges out of contemporary Gertrude for the strongminded,
she followed my poor father’s body” questions about guilt of Mary intelligent, succinct and sensible woma
“Like Niobe, all tears—why she, even she (O God, a beast that Queen of Scots that she is”
wants discourse of reason Would have mourned longer!), married Henry VIIIs marriage to Catherine of Smith - “pleasing men is Gertrude’s ma
with my uncle” Aragon interest”
“Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears Had left the flushing in Links to corruption in Hamlet "with Smith – “although he clearly loves her-
her gallèd eyes, She married. O, most wicked speed, to post With such dexterity to incestuous sheets" Claudius shares the Hamlets’ conceptio
such dexterity to incestuous sheets!” Elizabeth I was Ann Boleyn's of Gertrude as an object. She is
“From me, whose love was of that dignity That it went hand in daughter (Henry's second wife) so it possessed as one of the effects of his
hand even with the vow I made to her in marriage, and to decline fits that through the character of actions.”
Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor To those of mine.” Hamlet, Shakespeare is condemning Smith – “Gertrude has not moved in th
“the King and Queen” (order it is said) the marriage between Henry and play toward independence; only her
“I shall obey you.” Catherine of Aragon to confirm divided loyalties and her unhappiness
“Let his queen-mother all alone entreat him To show his grief. Let Elizabeth's status as Henry's heir intensify.”
her be round with him;” (control over her) and thus supreme ruler.
“sit by me” & “No, good mother. Here’s metal more attractive.” Women in the Elizabethan era were
“The poisoner woos the Queen with gifts. She seems harsh awhile expected to be chaste yet
but in the end accepts his love.” paradoxically viewed as
“Such love must needs be treason in my breast. In second husband uncontrollably sexual creatures
let me be accurst. None wed the second but who killed the first.”
“If she should break it now!”
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
“Mother, you have my father much offended.”
“you question with a wicked tongue.”
“A bloody deed—almost as bad, good mother, As kill a king and
marry with his brother.”
“heaven... is thought-sick at the act.”
No soliloquys to gauge her thoughts and rarely speaks for longer
than a line or two
, Her most prominent involvements are in the progression of the
stories of men
“Repent what’s past, avoid what is to come, And do not spread the
compost on the weeds To make them ranker.”
“It is the poisoned cup. It is too late.” (mirrors it being too late to
tell her story)
The Ghost “The serpent that did sting thy father’s life Now wears his The Elizabethan audience would have John Dover Wilson - “we are never
crown” feared ghosts and what they perfectly certain as to just who or what
“prophetic” represented. Religious people saw them the ghost is”
“incestuous… adulterate beast” as capable of leading those that saw Kerrigan – “the Ghost personifies the
“a radiant angel” them into madness and Hell. past”
“do not let thy soul contrive against thy mother aught” “The ghost is the guiding force behind
“love… of that dignity That it went hand in hand even with the Hamlet. It asks him to seek revenge for
vow I made to her in marriage” King Hamlet's death. This propels him
“revenge his foul and most unnatural murder” into a series of events that end in his
“rankly abused” death.”
“in complete steel” “The ghost motivates the entire action
“bid (him) hold (his) peace” the play.”
“noble”
“bend(s) (his) eye on vacancy”
“within two hours” & “twice two months”
“(his father’s memory) shall live within the book and volume of
(his) brain”
“incestuous sheets”
Ophelia “Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain, Women in the Elizabethan era were Elaine Showalter – “Ophelia is deprived
If with too credent ear you list his songs, expected to be chaste yet of thought, sexuality and language”
Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open paradoxically viewed as Dusinberre - “Ophelia has no chance to
To his unmaster’d importunity.” uncontrollably sexual creatures develop an independent conscience of
“The chariest maid is prodigal enough Hysteria means her own”
If she unmasks her beauty to the moon.” Ophelia can be viewed as a
“POLONIUS: I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth, stereotype of female insanity.
Have you so slander any moment leisure,
As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
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