Hamlet: Act 5, Scene 1
Question: Does Hamlet or any other character go through the grief stages?
"How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with. To hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil! Conscience and grace to the profoundest pit! I dare damnation. To this point I stand that both the worlds I give to negligence. Let come what comes, only I'll be revenged most thoroughly for my father." Act 4, Sc. 5
Theme: Hamlet's desire for (and concept of) death/suicide. In Act 5 Scene 1, Hamlet's concept of death is challenged. Surrounded by skulls Hamlet realizes that a person's accomplishments mean nothing after death. Even with this new revelation Hamlet is still driven by the desire for death. Ex.: Hamlet fighting with Laertes in Ophelia's grave; Hamlet declaring every dog will have it's day.
Essential question: Does Hamlet or any other character go through grief stages? In scene 1 Hamlet and Laertes are stricken with grief. Both are struggling with their fathers' deaths (anger stage) but they also grieve for Ophelia. Ophelia's death throws both characters into the bargaining and depression stages.
Defining Thing
Plot Analysis
The gravedigger, after Hamlet inquires whose grave he is digging, replies that graves belong to no men or women, because they are dead.
Our worldly identifications no longer exist once we are dead, because we are all the same when reduced to skulls and bones. (Existentialism)
The two grave diggers are digging Ophelia’s grave.
Ophelia has killed herself, and the two diggers contemplate whether or not she deserves a Christian burial.
Death plays a large part in this scene, due to both the setting of the play, a graveyard, and what circumstances they are there for, Ophelia’s funeral.
Ophelia and Hamlet both contemplated suicide, but while Hamlet decided to stay alive to avenge his father’s death, Ophelia could not live being caught between what her father and brother asked of her (deceive Hamlet) and what she felt she wanted to do (be with Hamlet).
Hamlet picks up the skull of Yorick, his previous court jester, and remembers his time with him. Hamlet realizes that even men as great as Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great are reduced to dust like the rest of us.
Horatio and Hamlet come in, and look at all of the skulls. Hamlet wonders at the past lives and their meanings behind the skulls.
Claudius, Gertrude, and Laertes enter the graveyard carrying Ophelia. The priest accompanies them. Hamlet and Horatio hide.
“Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddities now…?” (V.i.90-91)
Laertes, grief-stricken and offended that the priest would not perform more burial rites, jumps into Ophelia’s grave to hold her.
Laertes is going through the depression stage of the grief cycle at this point, with some bargaining. He has just lost both a father and a sister, and is extremely depressed.
Hamlet jumps out declaring that he loved Ophelia more, and he and Laertes brawl in the grave.
Both men are going through the anger stage of the grief cycle.
Laertes and Hamlet are pulled apart, and Hamlet storms off.
The king reminds Laertes that Hamlet will soon be taken care of.
Vocabulary
(Drawings by
Elise-Enjoy)
Allusion & Conceit
Symbolism & Sensory Imagery
"Lay her i' th' earth, And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring!"
-Laertes, 248-250
*In the grief cycle, the gravediggers have reached the stage of acceptance, accepting death so completely that they are able to discuss digging graves freely. This contrasts Hamlet's dilemma with death.
"There is no ancient
gentleman but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers:
they hold up Adam's profession."
"Was he a gentleman?"
"He was the first that ever bore arms."
"Why, he had none."
"... The Scripture says 'Adam digged:'
could he dig without arms?"
-Gravediggers, 30-38
Ambiguity & Wit
(= Pun!)
"I think [the grave] be thine, indeed; for thou liest in't."
"You lie out on't, sir, and therefore it is not
yours: for my part, I do not lie in't, and yet it is mine."
"Thou dost lie in't, to be in't and say it is thine:
'tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest."
'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away gain, from me to you."
-Hamlet & Gravedigger, 124-132
- Ambiguity is a double-meaning. 'Lie' can be interpreted as lying down or telling a falsehood.
- Wit is intellectually amusing language that surprises and delights. Both Hamlet and the gravedigger demonstrate their wit here as they battle it out in a competition of the quick-tongued.
- The combination of ambiguity and wit results in humor and a pun.
- Hamlet is amused, finding the gravedigger's wit to make him both perceptive and mildly annoying. He enjoys the flexibility and nuances of language.
The ancient Romans thought of violets as a symbol of mourning, their deep color indicative of spilt blood, such as Ophelia's 'suicide'. Their sweet scent lent them a peaceful connotation. The Romans often laid them on graves to symbolize their continued affection for the one who had passed on, as Laertes felt for Ophelia. They believed that this ensured the deceased would rest quietly, as Laertes wished for Ophelia.
- 'Adam' is a reference to Genesis in the Bible.
- The allusion adds depth to gravedigger's statement, suggesting that digging is a sacred profession as old as time itself.
- Using the allusion shows that the gravedigger is well-read and religious.
- Conceit is an unusual and clever comparison between two seemingly dissimilar things. By successfully comparing Adam with gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers, the gravedigger displays his intellect and quick wit.
'Violets' evokes visual (see), kinesthetic (feel), and olfactory (smell) imagery. The beauty, delicacy, and sweet scent of violets reflects Ophelia's beauty and her gentle, loving nature.
Source: http://www.ehow.com/about_6547448_meaning-violet-flower_.html#ixzz2qhLd4Z2W
Euphemism
Summary
"Is she to be buried in Christian burial when she willfully seeks her own salvation?"
-Gravedigger, 1-2
Alliteration &
Rhetorical Question
"Where be his quiddities now, his quillities, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks?"
-Hamlet, 101-102
- The polite phrase "willfully seeks her own salvation" replaces the dirty phrase "committed suicide."
- Suicide was considered a sin, a scandal, and an indecent topic.
- The fact that the gravedigger feels that to be tactful he must replace 'suicide' with a euphemism implies the sensitivity, difficulty, and delicacy of the indecorous topic.
- It opens up debate between the gravediggers to what "willfully" denotes.
* This quote elaborates on some of the societal beliefs that influence Hamlet's position on death and suicide.
- A rhetorical question implies that the answer is already known.
- The rhetorical question shows that Hamlet is pensive, exploring his inner unrest about life and death more with himself than Horatio.
- This exemplifies Hamlet's thoughtful and insightful characteristics.
- The alliteration adds emphasis, rhythm, and whimsy to this line.
- Alliteration reinforces the eloquence and sophistication of Hamlet's speech.
- The added whimsy implies that the lawyer's efforts were trivial. He worked so hard just to have everything decimated by death.
* Hamlet has an inner dilemma centered around the temporal qualities of life and the destruction death brings. He perceives life's struggles as trivial and death as bleak. He finds that death takes every one of us, no matter what power and position we had in this life. We are all made equal in the end by death.
Literary
Devices
Apostrophe & Personification
Metaphor & Simile
"Anon, as patient as the female dove,
When that her golden couplets are disclosed,
His silence will sit drooping."
-Gertrude, 304-306
"Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your
gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one
now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?
Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let
her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must
come; make her laugh at that."
-Hamlet to Yorick's Skull, 194-202
* By speaking to the skull, Hamlet both denies Yorick's death and comes to accept it.
"This grave shall have a living monument."
-Claudius, 317
- By speaking to an inanimate object, Hamlet is able to release some of his repressed emotions while also revealing to the audience some of his inner musing.
- It creates a mood of melancholy and nostalgia as Hamlet is reunited with his old friend.
- His sarcasm, as he knows the skull will not answer, adds a morbid flavor to the mix.
- By conversing with the skull Hamlet implies personification.
- This makes the skull more vivid to the audience and creates an emotional attachment.
- The apostrophe gives the audience a deeper understanding of the intensity of Hamlet's emotional turmoil.
- Both the metaphor and the simile evoke vivid imagery.
- The simile says that Hamlet's aggressive behavior won't last. He'll soon go through the grief stages from anger to depression and acceptance,
- The metaphor shows how Hamlet will be standing at the grave for a while in denial, going through the grief process. (But just in case he gets rash again, Claudius asks the guards to stand watch.)
- They compare Hamlet's grieving to a mourning dove and a statue to emphasize that Hamlet will take Ophelia's death very hard.
Hyperbole & Understatement
Repetition & Parallelism
"This is mere madness."
-Gertrude, 302
"I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum."
-Hamlet, 285-287
"Alexander died, Alexander was buried,
Alexander returneth into dust."
-Hamlet, 216-217
Irony & Rhyme
- Hamlet accentuates his love for Ophelia through hyperbole.
- He attempts to trump Laertes' love in comparison of his own.
- Gertrude plays down Hamlet's madness by describing it as 'mere'. Madness is not a small thing, nor simple; thus this is an understatement.
- She portrays her son's mental state as 'just a phase'- he'll get over it soon.
- Hamlet uses a parallel structure of simple and short subject-verb clauses.
- His repetition of 'Alexander' creates emphasis.
- Creates rhythm
- Gives the sentence the feeling of a concise universal truth, like an aphorism, applicable to anyone.
*Hamlet is in the anger stage of the grief cycle. He takes his emotions about Ophelia's death out on Laertes.
(Hamlet died, Hamlet was buried...)
"Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:
O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall to expel the winter flaw!"
-Hamlet, 220-223
*Hamlet is in the depression stage as he expresses his dilemma. He has come to the realization that his father is gone and there's nothing he can do to bring him back. He is left feeling empty, unsure about the significance of life, struggling with the pain and implications of death.
- This is an example of situational irony, when events turn out the opposite of what was expected.
- The irony exemplifies Hamlet's poignant views on life, power, accomplishment, and death.
- The twist on the expected makes the viewers reevaluate their own beliefs- it makes them think.
- The end rhymes add rhythm and emphasis to Hamlet's speech, making his phrases appear more sophisticated, philosophical, and lyrical.
Quiz Time!
http://www.jeopardyapp.com/play/hamlet-act-5-scene-1
Reenactment
Character Analysis
Theme: Death and Decay