Hamlet, Part 7: Plot and Character Answers

Laertes returns to Denmark to confront Claudius about his father’s death. This is part of the plot’s

Read the excerpt from Act IV of Hamlet.Gentleman: She speaks much of her father; says she hears There's tricks i' the world; and hems, and beats her heart; Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt, That carry but half sense: her speech is nothing . . .Horatio: 'Twere good she were spoken with, for she may strew Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.Gertrude: Let her come in. [Exit Gentleman.] To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is, Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss: So full of artless jealousy is guilt, It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

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In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, what plot events undermine Queen Gertrude’s confidence?

Read the excerpt from Act IV of Hamlet.Claudius: Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door. What is the matter?Gentleman: Save yourself, my lord; The ocean, overpeering of his list, Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste Than young Laertes, in a riotous head, O'erbears your officers. The rabble call him lord; And, as the world were now but to begin, Antiquity forgot, custom not known, The ratifiers and props of every word, They cry, 'Choose we; Laertes shall be king!' Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds, 'Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!'

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, what plot event causes Ophelia’s mental decline?

Which words best describe Gertrude in Act IV of Hamlet?

In Act IV of Hamlet, why does Shakespeare include the plot event in which Horatio reads and reacts to Hamlet’s letter about an encounter with pirates?

Francisco and Bernardo, two castle guards in Elsinore, Denmark, stand alert on the castle steps at night. This is part of the plot’s

Read the excerpts from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.Which statement best describes Gertrude’s development between Act I and Act IV?