Chapter Synopsis and Commentary of Hamlet - Study Guide by William Shakespeare

you" (III.iv.20). This "glass" (mirror) is to be made of words and just as Hamlet has seen his own nature in soliloquy he wishes Gertrude to see hers. However, she fears that he is about to murder her and shouts for help. An answering noise comes from behind the curtain and, believing it to be the king, Hamlet accidentally kills Polonius who had arranged with Gertrude to listen in on the conversation and was standing behind the arras. This closet scene incorporates a visit from the Ghost warns Hamlet not to harm his motheramlet Laas and "To whet thy almost blunted purpose" (III.iv.112). The conflict here is between the old generation’s method of fierce action and Hamlet’s ways of intellectual thought and logic. Hamlet reveals to his distraught mother, who is caught miserably between loyalties to her husband and son, that his madness is assumed (he is "But mad in craft"). Hamlet proclaims his place to be "scourge and minister" to Elsinore and as such combine righteous vengeance with loving aid.

Act IV

Hamlet refuses to reveal to the court where Polonius’ corpse lies and talks instead in cryptic clues: "The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body" (IV.ii.24), emphasising the fact that physical actions do not embody intentions. Through his punning he emphasises the concept of the two bodies of a king: himself and body politic of the state. The King informs Hamlet that he is to be sent to England, where, unbeknown to the prince, the king has arranged for him to be killed. From this scene onwards we note that there emerges a stream of weapon imagery that lasts until death reigns over the court The language of court has been taken over by that of war, begun by Claudius’s reference to Hamlet’s "cannon" and "poisoned shot" (Iv.ii.42).

As if summoned by these words, Norwegian soldiers, led by Fortinbras, cross the stage on their way to fight the Poles over a piece of land worth nothing to either side. Fortinbras is brought into the action as a counterpart to Hamlet. Whereas Hamlet is always inside the castle, fighting against himself, Fortinbras suggests a macrocosmic scale of revenge and this is used to spur Hamlet’s sense of loyalty and injustice. His trivial code of honour serves as a comparison to Hamlet’s inaction in the face of so great an offence.

Ophelia enters, driven insane by grief for the loss of her father. Madness is her only liberation from her stock female role. Her true madness is juxtaposed against Hamlet’s assumed disposition but the states are related by the fact that they have both been caused by the death of their fathers. She sings ditties to the court and through these speaks of the truth and taboo subjects, reiterating the definition of madness as not fitting into social conventions.

Laertes returns from France to avenge his father’s death but is impeded by the vision of his sister who re-enters, singing distractedly, and handing out flowers to the court, each weighted with symbolic meaning. The herbs evoke a grotesque mixture of corruption and freshness that is reminiscent of Hamlet’s reference to the "unweeded garden" of Denmark in the first scene of the play. Ophelia acts as a social commentator, as Laertes observes: "a document in madness; thoughts and remembrance fitted" (IV.v.174). She performs the corresponding role as the Ghost for Hamlet, a voice that is beyond this world and prompts thirst for revenge.

News returns through a letter that Hamlet is back in Denmark as he escaped from the ship bound for England. In a depiction of a corrupt pupil and teacher conversation, the King convinces Laertes that it is not he, as Laertes had wrongly assumed, but Hamlet, who is guilty of Ophelia's madness and Polonius’ death. Together the king and Laertes plot to kill Hamlet by challenging him to a fencing match in which one of the swords is ‘bated’ so that

"With ease,

Or with a little shuffling, you may choose

A sword unbated, and, in a pass of practice,

Requite him for your father."