 Hamlet is one of Shakespeare's best known and arguably one of his most entertaining plays, okay? So it's highly loved as a storyline. Indeed, there have also been lots of modern renditions of it. Think, for instance, Lion King, which is basically based on Hamlet as its premise, okay? However, if you're studying this play, there's lots that happen. So what I thought would be really helpful, especially if you're revising it, either you don't necessarily have enough time or you just want to get a general idea of what the key events are. I have thought it would be best to have a mind map where you have a key summary in 12 steps of all the major events that happen in this play. So let's go over it. Now, when it comes to Hamlet, always remember that it starts off with this mysterious ghost that's been sighted, okay? And then we realize that this ghost is the ghost of dead King Hamlet who tells Hamlet to avenge his death. We learn that he was actually killed prematurely by his own brother, Claudius, who then later became the king, okay? So King Hamlet instructs his son, Hamlet, to kill King Claudius in order to avenge his death, okay? And Claudius not only did he usurp him, kill him, and then take over the throne, but also he ended up marrying Queen Gertrude, okay? Which is seen as a double insult, okay? So King Hamlet is very adamant that Hamlet should kill King Claudius, okay? Then Hamlet, who is not entirely sure whether he should believe the ghost, he decides that he reveals to his very good friend, Horatio. He decides that in order to try and catch out Claudius and to see whether what the ghost is saying is actually true, he is going to feign madness. He's going to pretend like he's crazy in order to see if he can catch out Claudius and catch him whether he's guilty of killing his own father. Then we learn that of course, when Hamlet is now feigning madness, he's not acting like himself. This really concerns and worries both his mother Queen Gertrude and King Claudius, okay? So Queen Gertrude and King Claudius are worried and so they ask two of Hamlet's friends from his university called Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that ask him, they invite them both to come over in order to keep an eye and monitor Hamlet. Separately, we learn that Polonius, who is Claudius's closest advisor, he also decides to monitor Hamlet, okay? So he's not entirely convinced that Hamlet's madness is real. He says that there's methods to it. So he decides to also monitor and help Claudius to figure out, you know, is Hamlet really crazy? Why is he acting like this, okay? So he decides to ask his daughter, Ophelia, to spy on Hamlet and whilst she is talking to him, and this is when he's feigning craziness, Hamlet is very sexist to her, is very offensive to her and Hamlet orders Ophelia whilst he's, he doesn't realize he's being spied on, but he orders Ophelia to go to a nunnery and says that he wants to ban all marriages because he sees women as really unfaithful, they cock hold the men and so on, okay? Then Hamlet afterwards decides to ask a group of traveling actors to come into Elsinor Castle and perform a play for him, okay? And he decides to ask him to perform basically what is a reenactment of Claudius' murder of his father, okay? So Hamlet asks actors to reenact his father's murder and whilst Claudius and the entire royal family are watching this and then this vivid scene is reenacted, Claudius becomes incredibly guilty, he has an outburst and he leaves the play, okay? So he leaves the entire scene and of course this confirms to Hamlet that his uncle is indeed guilty of killing his father. So Hamlet does commit to killing him. However, Hamlet then decides to follow him and finds him praying in a church. Now Claudius' back is to him and Hamlet has the perfect opportunity to basically stab Claudius and avenge his father. However, Hamlet decides not to kill him because he believes that if he were to kill Claudius whilst he's in the act of prayer, he would go directly to heaven. This was a very common Elizabethan belief, okay? So Hamlet blows this chance to kill King Claudius. Then afterwards, Hamlet confronts his own mother, okay? So he's really bothered by the fact that Claudius not only married her, she's basically doing all of these wifely duties for his uncle and he sees this as incestuous. So he confronts his mother in her bedroom. He doesn't realize that Polonius is spying, he's hidden behind the harass and Polonius then cries out, okay? And Hamlet assumes that this is Claudius so he decides to stab the person behind the curtain who he assumes is Claudius. He then realizes that Polonius is the person that's been killed. So not only does he drag his body away but he then decides to flee for England, okay? So he's then, I guess, banished from Denmark, okay? So he decides to flee on a ship to England with both of his friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. He then later realizes whilst he's on the ship that Claudius had sent instructions to England in order to have him killed. However, he's able to escape this, okay? So after Hamlet kills Polonius and then flees, Ophelia then realizes that her father has died. Her own brother, Lea, is in Paris and Ophelia really feels like she doesn't have very much to live for, okay? So she is driven to despair and to insanity by her own father's death, okay? And she becomes insane and decides to commit suicide by drowning herself in a river, okay? So Ophelia commits suicide, drowns in a river. Then Hamlet, once he has figured out that his uncle Claudius had tried to also have him murdered in England, okay? He then flees this ship, this pirate ship, then gets back to Elsinore and he then returns during Ophelia's funeral and he declares once he sees and realizes that she's died, he declares that he's always loved her, okay? Then separately, Lea, who has returned from Paris, he is enraged, he's really angry. He first initially thinks that Claudius has something to do with the death of his father as well as his sister. However, Claudius convinces him that actually it's Hamlet that's got something to do with it, okay? So Claudius then decides to lure him into a plan and Claudius and Leaities both agree to kill Hamlet in a duel, okay? So Leaities challenges Hamlet to a duel and this is when Claudius decides would be a perfect opportunity to kill Hamlet, who's a massive threat to him. So Leaities decides to fight Hamlet with a poisoned sword, so they poison his sword and they also agree that there will be a poisoned goblet, okay? Cup filled with a poisoned drink that Hamlet can drink in case the plan to stab Hamlet with this poisoned sword fails. Then whilst during this fight and during this duel and the whole entire royal family is watching it, Queen Gertrude decides to drink from the goblet because of course, nobody apart from Claudius and Leaities realized at that time that the goblet is poisoned. Gertrude reaches for this goblet, Claudius asks her not to, but she disobeys him deliberately and drinks from the goblet and of course dies and then that's when everybody realizes that this goblet is poisoned. So now Hamlet has witnessed not only his father has been killed, not only is Zephilia being killed, but now his mother has been killed. So he forces Claudius to drink from this and kills Claudius, then he and Leaities after being stabbed by Leaities own poisoned sword, they both end up dying. So Hamlet whilst he does eventually avenge his father's death and he eventually does kill Claudius, he does so, but then also ends up dying. And at the end of the play, we learn that Prince Fortenbrough whose own father had been killed by King Hamlet. So he wanted to wage war on Denmark in order to avenge his father's death. He arrives and finds the entire Danish royal family is dead. So he decides to move in and take over power. So that's really it when it comes to understanding the major events within Hamlet the play.