1. What are the gravediggers debating over? Ophelia and suicide, and whether she should have a christian burial.

According to the gravedigger, why is England a good place for Hamlet to have been sent? Because Hamlet was crazy and the people in England will take care of him because they’re just as crazy.

The clowns (gravediggers) discuss where and how Ophelia is to be buried. The gravediggers provide comic relief with their humor and sarcasm to relieve the disgusting qualities of their tasks. Shakespeare often uses comical figures to relieve the seriousness of a scene as he does here with words and actions.

What is the significance of the gravediggers? The graveyard is a setting of death, which foreshadows events to come. At first the gravediggers add to the somber atmosphere, arguing over whether Ophelia deserves a Christian burial since her death may have been a suicide.

What do the gravediggers say about Ophelia’s burial? She shouldn’t be getting a burial because she committed suicide.

Julianne Hansen, M.A. Dramatic irony occurs when the audience possesses an insight which at least one of the characters lacks. In act 5, scene 2, the audience is aware that Claudius plans to use the fencing match between Hamlet and Laertes as an opportunity to finally rid himself of his nephew.

Hamlet tells Horatio again that he is dying, and urges his friend not to commit suicide in light of all the tragedies, but instead to stay alive and tell his story. He says that he wishes Fortinbras to be made King of Denmark; then he dies.

There is situational irony in that Laertes and Claudius die by the scheme they’ve hatched. Gertrude’s death shows dramatic irony, as she is caught up in a trap set by her husband to catch her son. And Hamlet, who is just coming into his own, suggests that death is inevitable and truly waits for no man.

Instead, Gertrude’s love for Claudius creates a thrilling twist to the closet scene in which he is revealed as a murderer. The final Act, in which she is clearly aware that the wine is poisoned, sees her sacrifice herself to save Hamlet.

He draws his sword and stabs it through the tapestry, killing the unseen Polonius. Gertrude asks what Hamlet has done, and he replies, “Nay, I know not: / Is it the king?” (III.

The simple answer is that Gertrude does not see the ghost because the author, Shakespeare, does not want her to. He’s the one who wrote it that way.

When Hamlet exits in Act IV scene 3, after killing Ophelia’s father Polonius, he calls Claudius “dear Mother.” Thinking he has simply misspoken, Claudius tries to correct him and says, “Thy loving father, Hamlet.” However, Hamlet has not misspoken, in fact he meant the insult towards Claudius.

She saw him speak to the “incorporal air,” but he told her he was not mad. Later, Gertrude does what Hamlet asks and tells Claudius that Hamlet is mad. Since she goes along with this, we can assume that it is more likely that, by the end of this scene, Gertrude does not think Hamlet is mad.

Claudius says that Hamlet’s strange behavior has clearly not been caused by love for Ophelia and that his speech does not seem like the speech of insanity. He says that he fears that melancholy sits on something dangerous in Hamlet’s soul like a bird sits on her egg, and that he fears what will happen when it hatches.

Synopsis: Claudius and Gertrude set Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two boyhood friends of Hamlet, to spy on him. When Hamlet himself enters, he is confronted first by Polonius and then by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, whom he quickly identifies as Claudius’s spies.

Significance of Spying in Hamlet If Hamlet didn’t always have other characters spying on him he would have had a better chance of being able to kill the king, this is of course if he could get past his cowardice. Spying brings upon the death of Polonius as well as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Claudius spies on Hamlet because as he says, “Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.” He is worried that Hamlet knows more than he is letting on. When Polonius thinks he has discovered the secret to Hamlet’s melancholy and madness, Claudius is still skeptical that there must be causes other than a broken heart.

In a long soliloquy in Act II, Hamlet announces his intention to use the troupe of players to set a trap for Claudius. During the performance Hamlet will spy (or, as it actually happens in Act III, he will have Horatio spy) on Claudius to see if his reaction to the scene incriminates him.

Claudius finally perceives the depth of the danger Hamlet poses and entreats Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to hurry him to England to get him out of the way. Although unknown to everyone but the audience, Claudius now sees that he must instruct the king of England to kill Hamlet.

In Act II, Scene i, Polonius’s ostensible reason for sending Reynaldo to Paris is to take money and notes to Laertes. His real reason, however, appears to be that he wants Reynaldo to spy on Laertes and find out if he is gaming, drinking, fencing, swearing, or going to brothels.

Why does Polonius send Reynaldo to Paris? To take money and notes to Laertes and to spy on him to make sure he is not gaming, drinking, fencing, swearing, or going to brothels.

Polonius’s servant, sent to France by Polonius to check up on and spy on Laertes. What does Polonius think Laertes is up to in Paris? He suspects he’s being wild/reckless and gambling, fighting, swearing, drinking, etc.

Why does Ophelia come to see her father in the middle of ACT II, SCENE 1? Ophelia and Polonius take this to mean that Hamlet is insane, gone mad because she rejected her love. You just studied 8 terms!

It is the knowledge of her father’s untimely death, the fact that Hamlet has treated her so badly, and the realization that the one she loves is responsible for her father’s demise, that drive Ophelia to mental breakdown.

In act II, Ophelia brings her father, Polonius, the news that Hamlet burst into her room looking wild with his clothes messed up. He grabbed her arm and then went away without saying anything. We as an audience know that Hamlet is wild-eyed and acting crazily around Ophelia because he has just seen his father’s ghost.