Quote 1 Ghost:"A serpent stung me-so the whole ear of Denmark is by a forged process of my death rankly abus'd- but know, thou noble youth, the serpent that did sting thy father's life now wears his crown."
-Explanation: This quote said by the Hamlet's Father's ghost signifies the first act of betrayal and leads to the lack of morality in the characters throughout the rest of the play. This act committed by the king sets the tone for the rest of the play by indicating to the audience the selfishness and thirst for power present in some the characters. After this is told to Hamlet, the audience has an idea of the revenge and lack of morality that is to surface.
Quote 2 Guildenstern: "Heavens make our presence and our practices pleasant and helpful to him."
-Explanation: Guildenstern says this line after the King and Queen ask him and his partner to spy on Hamlet. Spying is very popular in this play considering the need for others to become involved in other people's business due to so much deceiving. Although it is immoral of Hamlet to fake being mentally ill, it is even worse that Claudius orders for him to be spied on despite being the reason for Hamlet's acting out in the first place.
Quote 3 Hamlet"O all you host of heaven! O earth! what else? And shall I couple hell? O, fie! Hold, hold, my heart; and you, my sinews, grow not instant old, but bear me stiffly up."
-Explanation: Hamlet is put into a situation where he is doomed to commit an immoral act. Although Hamlet would never think twice about disobeying his father’s orders, he recognizes that murder is wrong and that he himself may also go to heaven if he follows through. Hamlet is searching for a way to avenge his father’s death in a way that would not send him and his real father to hell. As much as he would like to please his father, there’s no question he isn’t second guessing about going against the Christian morals that he was raised to abide by.
Quote 4 Laertes: “And yet it is almost against my conscience.”
Explanation: Even though Hamlet was to blame for the death of Laerte’s father and sister, he still feels that killing Hamlet would be unjust at this point in the play. Although Laertes would have given anything to kill hamlet and fulfill his avenging needs earlier on, he had seen what Hamlet’s own uncle had planned for him and when faced with confrontation and death, he reflects on his own morality.
Quote 5 Hamlet:"Nay, but to live in the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love over the nasty sty."
-Explanation: This quote is said by Hamlet regarding King Claudius and his own mother. Although Hamlet’s mother is unaware of the murder Claudius committed, she still showed little grief towards her husbands death and almost simultaneously adapted his brother’s ruling. The “nasty sty” that Hamlet speaks of is the corruption of those who hold the power and how they will continue on with their lives as if nothing happened. Without any remorse the King sleeps with the wife of the person he murdered and without any hesitation the queen hands herself over to the next person that is running Denmark. Christian values would encourage doing the right thing despite the knowledge of others, but the knowledge of others is what is fuelling the the King’s habit of benefitting from what he so unrighteously stole.
Quote 6: Gertrude: “Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off, And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not for ever with thy vailed lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.”
-Explanation: Even Hamlet's mother, Queen Gertrude, tells Hamlet to stop grieving for his father. Death, she argues, is common. But when you think about it, losing a father isn't common considering it will only happen once throughout your whole life. Queen Gertrude’s moral values are questioned here.
Quote 7: Hamlet : “O, that this too too solid flesh would melt Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely.”
-Explanation: Hamlet here is clearly suicidal and is questioning his life. However, he is in a dilemma. He realizes suicide is a sin and he could end up in hell. Hamlet's struggle at this point, is one against himself where he would like more than anything to end his life but he feels he is obligated to avenge his father's killer. This is not only a test of his morality but of his priorities.
Quote 8.First Clown: “Is she to be buried in Christian burial that
wilfully seeks her own salvation?”
Second Clown: “I tell thee she is: and therefore make her grave
straight: the crowner hath sat on her, and finds it
Christian burial.” ….
Second Clown: “Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had not been
a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o'
Christian burial.”Explanation: This conversation from the gravediggers is about Ophelia and how she chose to commit suicide. A proper Christian burial would have not occurred but since her family comes from money, the religious practice is excused. The saying “Money talks” is shown here. To think that wealth would outdo the limitations of the faith they are all apart of, suggests the lack of morality among the whole community.
Quote 9: Hamlet: “That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once: how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were
Cain's jaw-bone, that did the first murder! It
might be the pate of a politician, which this ass
now o'er-reaches; one that would circumvent God,
might it not?”
-Explanation: Hamlet is holding the skull and is claiming that under every person’s skin, there is bone and we are all the same. He talks about equality and even though he comes from a rich family, he sees through the eyes of everyone and sees them as equal. Hamlet has a conversion here and the skull can be a source of his change of heart.
Quote 10: Hamlet:“To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?”
-Explanation: This is the cliché line that has been used when involving Shakespeare. Hamlet is contemplating suicide and decides to take a look at why people do not choose to commit suicide. He is very open in his soliloquy and takes the focus away from himself and more to the common person.
-Explanation: This quote said by the Hamlet's Father's ghost signifies the first act of betrayal and leads to the lack of morality in the characters throughout the rest of the play. This act committed by the king sets the tone for the rest of the play by indicating to the audience the selfishness and thirst for power present in some the characters. After this is told to Hamlet, the audience has an idea of the revenge and lack of morality that is to surface.
Quote 2 Guildenstern: "Heavens make our presence and our practices pleasant and helpful to him."
-Explanation: Guildenstern says this line after the King and Queen ask him and his partner to spy on Hamlet. Spying is very popular in this play considering the need for others to become involved in other people's business due to so much deceiving. Although it is immoral of Hamlet to fake being mentally ill, it is even worse that Claudius orders for him to be spied on despite being the reason for Hamlet's acting out in the first place.
Quote 3 Hamlet"O all you host of heaven! O earth! what else? And shall I couple hell? O, fie! Hold, hold, my heart; and you, my sinews, grow not instant old, but bear me stiffly up."
-Explanation: Hamlet is put into a situation where he is doomed to commit an immoral act. Although Hamlet would never think twice about disobeying his father’s orders, he recognizes that murder is wrong and that he himself may also go to heaven if he follows through. Hamlet is searching for a way to avenge his father’s death in a way that would not send him and his real father to hell. As much as he would like to please his father, there’s no question he isn’t second guessing about going against the Christian morals that he was raised to abide by.
Quote 4 Laertes: “And yet it is almost against my conscience.”
Explanation: Even though Hamlet was to blame for the death of Laerte’s father and sister, he still feels that killing Hamlet would be unjust at this point in the play. Although Laertes would have given anything to kill hamlet and fulfill his avenging needs earlier on, he had seen what Hamlet’s own uncle had planned for him and when faced with confrontation and death, he reflects on his own morality.
Quote 5 Hamlet:"Nay, but to live in the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love over the nasty sty."
-Explanation: This quote is said by Hamlet regarding King Claudius and his own mother. Although Hamlet’s mother is unaware of the murder Claudius committed, she still showed little grief towards her husbands death and almost simultaneously adapted his brother’s ruling. The “nasty sty” that Hamlet speaks of is the corruption of those who hold the power and how they will continue on with their lives as if nothing happened. Without any remorse the King sleeps with the wife of the person he murdered and without any hesitation the queen hands herself over to the next person that is running Denmark. Christian values would encourage doing the right thing despite the knowledge of others, but the knowledge of others is what is fuelling the the King’s habit of benefitting from what he so unrighteously stole.
Quote 6: Gertrude: “Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off, And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not for ever with thy vailed lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.”
-Explanation: Even Hamlet's mother, Queen Gertrude, tells Hamlet to stop grieving for his father. Death, she argues, is common. But when you think about it, losing a father isn't common considering it will only happen once throughout your whole life. Queen Gertrude’s moral values are questioned here.
Quote 7: Hamlet : “O, that this too too solid flesh would melt Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely.”
-Explanation: Hamlet here is clearly suicidal and is questioning his life. However, he is in a dilemma. He realizes suicide is a sin and he could end up in hell. Hamlet's struggle at this point, is one against himself where he would like more than anything to end his life but he feels he is obligated to avenge his father's killer. This is not only a test of his morality but of his priorities.
Quote 8.First Clown: “Is she to be buried in Christian burial that
wilfully seeks her own salvation?”
Second Clown: “I tell thee she is: and therefore make her grave
straight: the crowner hath sat on her, and finds it
Christian burial.” ….
Second Clown: “Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had not been
a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o'
Christian burial.”Explanation: This conversation from the gravediggers is about Ophelia and how she chose to commit suicide. A proper Christian burial would have not occurred but since her family comes from money, the religious practice is excused. The saying “Money talks” is shown here. To think that wealth would outdo the limitations of the faith they are all apart of, suggests the lack of morality among the whole community.
Quote 9: Hamlet: “That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once: how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were
Cain's jaw-bone, that did the first murder! It
might be the pate of a politician, which this ass
now o'er-reaches; one that would circumvent God,
might it not?”
-Explanation: Hamlet is holding the skull and is claiming that under every person’s skin, there is bone and we are all the same. He talks about equality and even though he comes from a rich family, he sees through the eyes of everyone and sees them as equal. Hamlet has a conversion here and the skull can be a source of his change of heart.
Quote 10: Hamlet:“To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?”
-Explanation: This is the cliché line that has been used when involving Shakespeare. Hamlet is contemplating suicide and decides to take a look at why people do not choose to commit suicide. He is very open in his soliloquy and takes the focus away from himself and more to the common person.
