[Act Four Answers]
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If you haven't yet thought about your answers to the questions, may I
suggest that you return to that page. (This isn't supposed to be X's
Notes Online!)
May I stress that these are sample answers. I have stuck to what seemed
to me to be common sense explanations. If you're looking for a philosophy
of life, you won't find one here.
Κ Κ
What? Why? How? Structure
Question 1 (Character of
Claudius) Question 1 (Breakdown in Act Four?)
Question 2 (Has Gertrude
reformed?) Themes and Imagery
Question 3 (Changes in Hamlet) Question 1 (Disease and rottenness)
Question 4 (Laertes' speech) Question 2 (Morality of revenge)
Question 5 (Ophelia's madness) Question 3 (Hamlet compared to Laertes
and Fortinbras)
Question 6 (Ophelia's death) Κ
Act Four Answers Κ
What? Why? How?
1. Claudius begins and ends the act by lying
to Gertrude. Name FOUR other aspects of his
character that are provable on the basis of
what he says and does in this act. Is he still
wracked with guilt, do you think?
Just a brief note on how Claudius lies to
begin. In Act Four, scene one, he tells
Gertrude that he refrained from taking action
against Hamlet because of his love for the
Prince. In actual fact, we know from the
King's speeches at the end of III.i. and the
opening of III.iii. that the King has been
planning to send Hamlet away to England for
some time. It seems likely that at this point,
he decides that he wants the prince dead. In
any case, the general tone of Claudius'
attitude towards Hamlet has been one of
suspicion and dislike, certainly not love.
At the end of the Act, in scene seven, he
tells Gertrude "How much I had to do to calm
his rage". This is deceitful rather than an
out and out lie, because what Claudius has
done is to direct and control Laertes' rage
rather than calm it.
Other things one might say about Claudius in
this act are how callous and selfish he is in
his reaction to Polonius' death. The King
shows no pity or sorrow at the death of his
counsellor. Rather, his reaction is: "It had
been so with us had we been there" (IV.i.).
That is to say, he realises that Hamlet poses
a direct physical threat to himself and must
be disposed of immediately.
A second, very obvious thing to say, is that
Claudius' treatment of Laertes shows what a
brilliant manipulator he is. He expresses no
anger towards the rebel; he gives him
everything he wants ("Let him demand his fill"
IV.v.) Once he has thus deflated Laertes'
rage, he begins to provoke it again in order
to persuade him to take part in his plot to
kill Hamlet through treachery in the fencing
match. Before explaining the plan, he asks
"Laertes, was your father dear to you?".
Thirdly, we may notice that Claudius doesn't
mention his conscience once in this act. In
Act Three, he desperately attempts to pray for
the strength to repent his crimes. In Act
Four, all of Claudius' actions are villainous,
suggesting that he has come to peace with the
idea of being unrepentant.
Lastly, one might note Claudius' apparent love
of horseriding which is communicated in his
unnecessarily lengthy speech about the virtues
of Lamord in IV.vii. Alternatively, his
lengthy speech to Gertrude in IV.i. shows his
genuine worry about his kingdom. Or, Claudius
professes deeply-felt love for Gertrude when
he explains his failure to punish Hamlet in
IV.vii. It may be, however, that he is using
this as an excuse and the (alleged) popularity
of the prince is a more genuine reason.
[Back to the top.]
2. Has Gertrude reformed after her
confrontation with Hamlet in III.iv.?
In Act Three, scene four, Gertrude promises
Hamlet she will stop sleeping with Claudius.
There are two things to look at here in order
to try to assess whether she has done this:
Gertrude's aside at the opening of Act Four,
scene five and her behaviour around Claudius.
What she says at the start of Act Four, scene
five is that every event seems like an omen
that something dreadful is about to happen to
her "sick soul", which she defines as a sinful
soul. This seems to suggest that, like her new
husband, she knows she is sinful, but is
persisting in that sin. If she had reformed by
this point, four scenes after having made her
promise to Hamlet, she would presumably not be
feeling so sinful.
It is fairly difficult to draw any particular
conclusions from the Queen's behaviour around
Claudius. We see them alone together in Act
Four, scene one and briefly in Act Four, scene
five. In the first scene, she lies to Claudius
in order to protect her son. She tells the
King that Hamlet killed Polonius in a "mad
fit". The Queen is apparently convinced of
Hamlet's sanity by the end of Act Three, scene
four and so we might assume that by blaming
Hamlet's madness for his actions, she is
trying to make her son seem less responsible
for the murder.
Similarly, she goes on to tell Claudius that
Hamlet is now weeping over the body of
Polonius. This is a very unlikely turn of
affairs given the Prince's attitude at the end
of the closet scene ("I'll lug the guts into
the neighbour room"). Again, she seems to be
trying to make her son's actions less
reprehensible.
What she doesn't do in this scene is say
anything to Claudius about their relationship,
nor does she anywhere else in this act. When
they are alone together in scene five, between
Ophelia's exit and Laertes' arrival, only the
King speaks. When Laertes threatens to kill
Claudius, Gertrude apparently holds him back
bodily. (The King says "Let him go,
Gertrude..."). This does not seem to me to be
the actions of a woman who has told her
husband that their relationship has to finish
forever and should never have started.
Gertrude's tragedy is that she loves both
Claudius and Hamlet, who obviously hate each
other. She feels guilty about her second
marriage, but loves Claudius too much to end
it.
[Back to the top.]
3. In what ways does Hamlet appear to change
during this act?
Hamlet appears physically in three scenes in
Act Four (ii, iii and iv) and appears to us
through letters in scenes six and seven.
Hamlet's appearances in scenes one and two
show the Prince behaving much as he did in
Acts Two and Three. He is maintaining his act
of madness and insulting everyone he meets. I
would suggest that he is quite a bit more
insulting to the King than on any previous
occasion. In scene three, he tells the King to
send a messenger to see if Polonius is in
heaven. If he isn't there, Hamlet tells
Claudius, "seek him i'th'other place
yourself", effectively telling the King to "go
to hell". By this point, after the
play-within-the-play, the King knows that
Hamlet knows about the murder. Hamlet knows
that the King knows he knows about the murder.
Neither of them can see much point in even
pretending to be amicable any more.
In scene four, Hamlet reflects upon Fortinbras
and his army. They are going to war over a
tiny, worthless patch of land. Hamlet knows he
has much better reasons to go to war. He
wonders about what it is that has been holding
him back and resolves that from this point
forward his thoughts must be "bloody". This is
Hamlet's last soliloquy in the play, and these
final words tell us why. Hamlet has resolved
to give up reflection, feeling it has only led
to cowardly conclusions.
In Hamlet's letters, we see some proof that he
has become more decisive and even rash. He
writes to Horatio to tell him that he has
boarded a pirate ship single-handed, been
captured and has made a deal for them to
deliver him back to Denmark.
This miraculous escape from Claudius' plot to
have Hamlet killed by the King of England
stretches the audience's credulity a bit. It
is hard to see Hamlet doing this. It is a bit
of a disappointment that we don't see it on
stage. We know that Shakespeare had to get
Hamlet back to Denmark somehow in order for
the plot to be resolved. He also wanted to
show this new daredevil side to Hamlet.
Nonetheless, it isn't a very wonderful piece
of plotting.
Hamlet's final appearance in the Act is in
scene seven through the device of a letter to
the King. I read the tone of this letter as
taunting and sarcastic. Expressions like "High
and mighty" and "your kingly eyes" seem
overly-respectful, leading me to view them as
jibes. This letter may therefore be read as
reinforcing Hamlet's brand-new rash and openly
rebellious character.
[Back to the top.]
4. When Laertes speaks in this act, he often
uses hyperbolic (over-exaggerated)
expressions. What might this imply about him?
A few examples of this trait are:
That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me
bastard... (IV.v.118)
He means "any part of me that can calm down
following my father's murder makes me a
completely unfeeling and unnatural son".
Laertes is quite a contrast to Hamlet in his
pursuit of revenge. The Prince knows he is
very calm with regard to his revenge. This is
the subject of his third soliloquy ("O what a
rogue and peasant slave am I" II.ii.501). I
think this is part of Shakespeare's reason for
having Laertes in the play. He shows us the
damaging, immoral consequences of the
single-minded pursuit of revenge. Such is
Laertes' thirst for Hamlet's blood that he is
more than happy to resort to dishonourable
means to achieve his aim.
[I will] Repaste [my father's friends] with my
blood. (IV.v.147)
He means that like a pelican (according to
Elizabethans), he will open up his chest in
order to nourish his father's friends with his
own blood. If I was a friend of Polonius, I
don't think I would particularly welcome this
gesture. Of course, Laertes doesn't mean this
literally. He means that he feels very warmly
towards the friends of his father. It is this
that makes Laertes seem insincere. He says
things in the most grotesque and exaggerated
way, and we know he doesn't really mean them.
He is behaving in the way that he thinks a
revenging son ought to act.
O heat dry up my brains, tears seven times
salt / Burn out the sense and virtue of mine
eye! (IV.v.156)
This is very similar to the previous example.
On seeing Ophelia's madness, he says that he
wishes his anger would cause his brain to dry
up and kill him. Then he says that he wants
his tears to increase in saltiness to such an
extent that it burns out his eyes. We know he
doesn't really want this to happen because he
is also saying that he's desperate for
revenge. What he's doing is trying to
communicate to the others the strength of his
anger and sorrow. He may well feel angry and
sorrowful, but he is putting on an act to make
sure everyone else knows about it.
[Back to the top.]
5. Why has Ophelia gone mad? How might this be
proven?
We don't see or hear about Ophelia between Act
Three, scene two and Act Four, scene five. In
the interim, she has become insane. As I
suggested in my sample answers about Act
Three, there are signs there that Ophelia is
not unlikely to lose her mind. (Go here for
that answer).
I will confine myself here to what Ophelia's
songs can tell us about her state of mind and
to what Ophelia's madness adds to our
understanding of madness in the play.
We are told that Ophelia is mad by the unnamed
gentleman at the opening of scene five. He
says she speaks much of her father and then:
ΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚHer speech is nothing,
Yet the unshap*d use of it doth move
The hearers to collection. They yawn at it,
And botch the words up fit to their own
thoughts... (IV.v.7-10)
This means "Ophelia's speech is meaningless,
but this chaotic state makes those who hear it
try to make sense of it. They are amazed by
her speech and make the words fit their own
interpretation". This statement seems to be
crucial to understanding how madness is
presented in this play. When Hamlet and
Ophelia are thought to be insane, their
observers try to interpret the reasons for
their insanity. The reasons they come up with
always reflect the preoccupations of the
observers. In the case of Hamlet, Claudius
thinks he has a hidden secret (III.i.158)
since he himself has a hidden secret.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern think that
Hamlet's ambition is the cause of his madness
since they themselves are ambitious. Similarly
with Ophelia, Laertes thinks she is trying to
tell him to take revenge for her father
(IV.v.168), a course he has already decided
on. In "Hamlet", madness is a mirror.
Our interpretations of Ophelia's madness are
therefore put under question by the play. Are
we seeing what is really there or are we
projecting our own expectations onto her?
Nonetheless, I set the question, so I ought to
attempt to answer it. I am only going to deal
with her songs as they are probably the most
striking and interpretable aspect of her
madness.
Ophelia sings three songs to the Queen in
IV.v., and two more later in the scene after
her brother's arrival. The first ("How should
I your true love know...") is about an absent
lover. The second (which might be a
continuation of the first) begins "He is dead
and gone lady". The third "Tomorrow is Saint
Valentine's Day" is the story of how a young
girl is duped into sleeping with a man who
promises to marry her and doesn't. Applying
the first two songs to Ophelia's history
doesn't take much ingenuity. She has an absent
lover and a dead dad. The third, more bawdy,
song is a little trickier. Hamlet has not been
unfaithful to Ophelia, in fact the opposite is
more true. Yes, he's unpleasant to her, but
she's the one who participates in a plot to
trick the other. It is possible that Ophelia's
madness transposes the sexes of the characters
and that the song is about her infidelity. It
is also possible that Ophelia is mourning her
own virginity. Or that her delirium releases
the sexuality which has till this point been
pent up by the demands of propriety and
decorum. We don't know enough to make a
definite choice. The next song, after Ophelia
hands out the flowers, is apparently part of a
popular series of "Bonny Robin" songs which
were about lovers and unfaithfulness. The
final song ("And will a not come again") is
about the death of an older man. It is not
implausible, on the basis of these five songs,
