This document contains in depth character summaries of all the key characters in the play, Hamlet. Studying these notes help a lot with being able to do your essay and contextual questions well in paper 2. These notes can also be used if you are studying Hamlet for A-levels.
Hamlet is a character of many contradictions.
He is courteous yet rude, reckless yet cautious, passionate yet cold, outgoing yet
introverted, and at times he is a man of action, while at other times he seems a hesitating
procrastinator.
Negatives: all his suicidal thoughts, his self loathing, his brutal treatment of the innocent
Ophelia, the killing of her father Polonius and the violent condemnation of his mother.
At the end we are left with the lasting memory of his princely qualities.
Hamlet is a university student.
While still coping with his loss of OKH, he witnesses the coronation of his uncle, a man for
whom he has little respect, and the remarriage of his mother.
His world has fallen apart. It is become weary, stale, flat, an unprofitable.
But the arrival of his friends and the news of his father's ghost or turning point, his interest in
life is temporarily restored.
At the beginning of the play, Hamlet was angry and filled with a sense of helplessness.
His despair had reached the point that he was thinking of self slaughter.
After the visitation of the ghost he is a different man and his suspicions about Claudius
confirmed he has moved into action is antic disposition has already got Claudius worried
enough to engage Hamlets friends as spies.
And Polonius has made a little headway in his attempt to find out the truth about Hamlets
behaviour.
Hamlet is intelligent and very alert.
He suspects that Ophelia's rejection of him is Polonius is doing and he is not taken in by the
sudden arrival of his old friends.
Hamlet is growing in power and so is becoming a dangerous man.
Hamlet has been on stage for almost the whole of Act three.
In two outbursts of rage, he is attacked both of Ophelia and Gertrude.
He has enjoyed himself briefly with the actors, as has has proved Claudius’ guilt.
He has acknowledged horatios true friendship an exposes the falseness of Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern.
He has killed Polonius and he nearly killed Claudius.
Despite all that, he has not avenged his father's murder and he is now about to be sent to
England.
Hamlet returns to Denmark talking and behaving much as he used to before his wild
outbursts in Act Three and four.
His witty language and delight in Word play are as good as ever, his readiness to
philosophise about life and death, his easiness with Horatio, and his gentle interrogation of
the grave digger All point to the same intelligent and sensible man he once was.
In some ways the worst is over for Hamlet.
He seems now, and this will become increasingly apparent as the ACT progresses to have
sorted out in his mind what needs to be done and the sacrifices that that might entail.
Hamlets narration of his rollicking adventure, complete with pirates, suggests an almost
childlike excitement in the telling.
He rattles on at a good lick, relishing every detail.
Nowhere is the man's youthfulness and energy shown more sharply.
Bright thinking ahead, plotting and planning with skill, Wit and ingenuity.
, Hamlet reveals yet again the kind of man he is and why, according to Claudius, he is so
popular among the people.
Hamlet is disgusted by the corruption he sees around him.
Controlled by his passions.
He gains sympathetic hold of the reader.
He holds a disgust for his mother and intensified hatred of his uncle.
His first soliloquy reveals his deep anguish and despair at the injustice and corruption he
sees all around him, also his bitterness and disgust about his mother's marriage to Claudius.
It is immediately clear that he is an intellectual given to reflection and contemplation.
He is in a position of powerlessness.
The Ghost places an enormous burden on him by demanding that Hamlet Avenges his
father's death.
He puts on an antic disposition, convincing Polonius or failure, the queen and the general
public that he is mad, but not the one who really matters, the king.Heroes is the King's
suspicions, an it is the king who derives the most advantage from the madness, making
political use of the general belief in Hamlets madness when it is in his interest to do so.
Hamlets self derision and tendency to inaction is apparent in the second soliloquy when he
accuses himself of being a coward for not having taken action against Claudius.Yet he also
reveals his ingenuity is plot to force Claudius to reveal his guilt through the play The Murder
of Gonzaga.
In the third soliloquy, Hamlet again seems overwhelmed by bitterness, heartache, Anna,
desire to commit suicide.In his dealings with the actors, we catch a glimpse of Hamlet's true
nature, untainted by the circumstances he finds himself in. He is cheerful, enthusia stick,
confident, intelligent and witty.
Once the guilt of Claudius has been confirmed, Hamlets passion rules his reason.Here
Ashley murders Polonius, hoping that it was Claudius an since Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern to their deaths.
When Ophelia allows herself to be used as bait for Polonius and Claudius to spy on Hamlet,
he sees it as another betrayal, lashing out at her in anger, being very cruel to her. Anne
confirming his view that all women of false an adulterous. His view of a failure has been
coloured by his disgust for his mother's behaviour.Or Philly's songs and flowers. Or mostly
connected with unfaithfulness and deception of love.Hamlet is overcome when he learns of
her death and the grave side, and expresses his grief earnestly.
Hamlet tries to behave behave honourably towards Laertes, whom he feels he has wronged,
an magnanimously apologises for having killed his father, blaming his madness as the cause
of the murder.
Throughout the play, Hamlet shows his own lack of balance and restraint. Unlike her ratio,
he commits impulsive and wrong headed actions through the failure of his reason to control
his passions.His passionate determination to take revenge is halted throughout the play by
periods of thought and reflection.This imbalance between passion and reason, action and
inaction, is what lies at the heart of the tragedy.
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