 The play Hamlet centres on its protagonist, Prince Hamlet, who faces the agonising decision as to whether he should avenge his own dead father by killing King Claudius, who happens to also be his uncle. So this play really centres around the complex character of Hamlet, who on the one hand is shown to be a very deep thinker, he's shown to be quite contemplative. However, this really does seem to be shown to be his Hamasha, his fatal flaw. He takes too long to come to a decision. He seems at many times to procrastinate on whether he should kill his own uncle, especially when it's quite clear to him within the play that his uncle did indeed kill his father and marry his mother. So Hamlet is presented whilst he's very melancholic, very contemplative, very intelligent. He's also shown to be too slow to act. And his character and this Hamasha, this fatal flaw within him, is contrasted to both Laertes after his father Polonius is killed by Hamlet, how quick Laertes is to find out who killed his father, an avengers father of course, then he has this deal with Hamlet. But also Fortenbra, so this is the Prince of Norway. So there's this continuous threat that is in the background of the play as it's progressing as to whether Fortenbra will wage war directly on Denmark because we learn that King Hamlet killed his own father. Okay, so Fortenbra again is very quick to act, is very quick to avenge the memory of his father he's driven by this. Whilst Hamlet in contrast, not only does he have the ghost who reveals to him how he died his father's premature death through the hands of his brother, but also he then sets all of these traps for Claudius and Claudius then reveals that his ghost or rather the ghost of King Hamlet was correct. Hamlet still takes way too long and then only kills him right before he dies, okay. So of course, when you are writing about this play either for your course of exams, you do need to be very intimately familiar with Hamlet, okay, and you need to be very familiar with key quotations related to his character. So as you can see behind me, I have selected the most relevant quotations that you should consider when writing about the character of Hamlet as well as a keyword level analysis you can do. So let's go over them. Now the first quotation this is tied in to really early on in the play. So this is just before Hamlet realizes that King Claudius did in fact kill his own father. Now we find before the ghost makes this revelation to Hamlet that Hamlet is really melancholic. He seems to be the only person at the beginning of the play who's still remembering his father's memory. He still seems to be really cut up by it and really sad about the passing of his father whilst Queen Gertrude was very quick to marry her uncle and of course King Claudius was underwent this coronation really quickly and everybody seems to be almost wanting to move on from the memory, okay. Now Claudius then really pompously tells Hamlet, oh you know, you're just like a son, not only are you a nephew but now you're a son, okay. And Hamlet privately shows that he somewhat rejects this, okay. He doesn't entirely trust Claudius and he states, a little more than kin and less than kind. And here the word love unless you want to focus on is the litteration of K and kin and kind. Now what he is basically saying to himself is, yeah, you are my uncle but I'm less, I'm really not like you. I don't really think like you, okay. And here we can see and this is when he's very melancholic. He's still really sad about his dad passing. We can see here that he really rejects King Claudius as his own father. So he rejects the idea of his union with his mother. But also he doesn't seem quite convinced of Claudius's power and his legitimacy to the crown, okay. So this is even before Hamlet learns that Claudius definitely used up the king. You can see that Hamlet kind of has a bad feeling about Zonko, okay. Now the second quotation you want to focus on, this is when he is presented as really melancholic. So everybody is trying to have fun, have a good time. His mom is even saying, oh, Hamlet, you know, stop wearing all black and so on. Whilst Hamlet is refusing to pretend that everything is okay. And he seems really despondent. He seems really sad. And this is still before he learns the real reason why his father died. However, here we can see that it's presented as very melancholic, very despondent. He states, how weary, still flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world, okay. And this is what we call an exclamatory sentence. Remember an exclamatory sentence is a sentence that shows a strong emotion and it ends with an exclamation mark. Here Hamlet seems to be really depressed. He doesn't see the point of living. His dad is no longer around. He's really sad. But also he feels somewhat betrayed by his mom's decision to marry off so quickly. Now the wide love analysis you want to focus on is the listing of these adjectives, weary, still, flat, unprofitable here. What this is illustrating as Hamlet is a really deep thinking is very moody, he's quite melancholic. And some critics have said that this illustrator is very intelligent, okay. The next quotation, and this is when Hamlet finds out from the ghost that King Claudius did betray him. So he killed King Hamlet and then married his mother. We can see here Hamlet is obviously disgusted. He has got feeling us proven right. However, we see that not only is he disgusted and angry by his, by King Claudius to his uncle, but he's also still really angry at his mother, okay. And actually one of the things that we find is Hamlet is quite incredibly sexist. He's, he wants to control who his mother is sleeping with. He wants to control his mother's sexuality, but also he tries to control Ophelia and he sees women as almost these people, these beings that can't be trusted. Now here, once he realizes the truth about how King Claudius took power, he states, oh most pernicious women, oh villain, villain, smiling damned villain, okay. And of course he's talking about King Claudius here, that he's calling him a villain. And again, these two are what we call exclamatory sentences. We can see Hamlet is really angry, can't believe the sheer treachery of his uncle's actions, but also here we can see that he's also angry at his mother and he doesn't recognize that his mother, one of the reasons why very likely she married King Claudius is because she would be in a very difficult position had she not maintained her queenship, okay. Remember that a lot of women, especially during the Elizabethan time, they really didn't have that much power, they classified as the husband's properties. And if you're a queen, even if in your own right you had some form of power as a queen, if your husband died and you became a widow, you could easily be replaced by your son who could completely usurp you from your throne, you then had no power, okay. So Gertrude really faced a difficult decision and she decided to add strategically by marrying King Claudius. However, Hamlet doesn't really care about this, he only sees the negatives of his mother, okay. Also the word love analysis you want to focus on is the repetition of the term villain, okay. And of course, this is illustrating how much he dislikes King Claudius, especially now he realizes what King Claudius has done. However, even if the ghost has told him, this is what your uncle has done, this is how he's betrayed me, Hamlet still takes far too long to decide whether to kill his king, okay. And he then decides, okay, I'm not sure if I should trust this ghost. So I'm going to try and pretend that I'm mad in order to see whether King Claudius has indeed murdered my father, whether this ghost is right, okay. And then he tells this plan to Horatio. He tells Horatio that he's going to put an antique disposition on, antique disposition means he's going to act like he's mad, yeah. Now here the word love analysis you want to focus on firstly is that adjective of antique, which means his disposition is crazy, okay. And also the assonance of oh in disposition and on. Now here, what we can see is arguably Hamlet, even if he is intelligent in the sense that he's not just jumping to follow what this ghost is saying, because remember, Elizabethans also used to have a deep distrust of the supernatural. So Hamlet is showing that he's maybe, you know, rather than trusting the supernatural rather than trusting this ghost, you know, it could be any spirit that's talking to him, he's going to try and test. So on the one hand, he's being shown to be prudent by acting like he's going to go mad in order to catch out Claudius. However, this could build that case for how he is procrastinating on making a decision that he should in contrast to, as I mentioned, Prince Fortenbrough of Norway and Lea, he's who they act first and then think later, okay. And during the time it was seen as actually a really good value if men, especially if they found out that one of the family members has been betrayed, they, if they were quick to avenge the death, feel quick to be violent kill, that was seen as a really positive trait. Okay. So a lot of Elizabethans would have been wondering when they're watching this as the audience, why is he not acting? Why is he not killing the king? Okay. So in terms of the word level analysis, as I mentioned, do you want to focus on the adjective and the assonance? And of course, this idea of antique disposition, there's this blurred line between when Hamlet is acting. However, at some points, we as the audience are not entirely sure if he sometimes becomes crazy and descends into madness. The next petition relation to Hamlet is when he decides that he is going to engage a group of traveling actors who come to Elsinor Castle and he decides that he's going to reenact the play whereby King Hamlet is killed by King Claudius. He's going to reenact all of that and then see how Claudius reacts to this. And he states, the plays the thing we're in, I'll catch the conscience of the king. Okay. Now the word level analysis that you want to focus on here is firstly the rhyme, routine, thing and king. And of course, this rhyme illustrates that Hamlet is really strategic in what he's thinking through, what this is illustrating is how intelligent he is. Okay. But also the alliteration of C in catch and conscience. Now, when he does obviously realize that Claudius feels really guilty because Claudius does flee, he still doesn't do anything. Okay. So this illustrates how his fatal flaw is definitely his procrastination, but he does hatch some really good plans in order to catch up the king, which illustrates his intelligence. The next quotation relating to Hamlet is of course, the most famous quotation from the play when he feels so pressured, he doesn't know what to do and he almost contemplates killing himself because he's thinking death might be easier than this terrible life. He wonders to be or not to be, that is the question. Okay. And here you want to focus on the repetition of to be or not to be here. He is contemplating suicide. He never follows through unlike Ophelia who does follow through. However, what we can see here is Hamlet feels really overwhelmed, really melancholic. He feels like the duty that's been placed on his shoulders by the ghost of his dead father is too much and he's contemplating whether death is better than the current life that he's living. The next quotation that relates to Hamlet is when he, we can see here, he's very sexist, especially very offensive and he's talking to Ophelia. He basically illustrates his mistrust of women. He feels very disillusioned by his mom's decisions to marry King Claudius and he sees all women as sinful and inherently two-faced and he states to Ophelia, God have given you one face and you make yourselves another. Basically what he's saying is that God has given you this face, but then you have a different side to you. Okay. You, you're basically two-faced and here what we can see is that Hamlet, he feels really resentful towards women as a whole. He sees women as cock holding their men. Okay. So basically cheating on the men that can't be trusted and he's basically telling Ophelia, you're also two-faced. I don't trust any of your intentions. Now, the one of analysis you want to focus on is the repetition of the second person pronoun you and also the noun face where he's basically talking about Ophelia and basically telling her that she's two-faced much like how he believes all women, including his mom, are two-faced. This is also compounded when he then tells Ophelia, so he's telling Ophelia, okay, I believe you're a fallen woman, you're sinful. However, the only way you can redeem yourself in my eyes is if you get the Determinary. Okay. He's basically telling her, go to a convent and don't give birth to any more sinners. That's when I'll know that you as a woman, you Ophelia are a pure person. Okay. Again, there's this obsession with trying to, we're trying to test women and to make them chaste somehow free from sexual sin, from Hamlet's perspective. Now, the one of analysis you want to focus on is the iteration of T in the two. And also this is what we call an imperative sentence. So Hamlet is issuing a command to Ophelia to get herself to a nunnery to prove that actually she's purer than what he believes women are. The next quotation, which illustrates how Hamlet has very mixed feelings is once he realizes Ophelia has died, so this is after his fled for England and then he comes back, then suddenly he's had a change of heart. He gets Ophelia's funeral and then he says, oh my gosh, I can't believe Ophelia's died. I loved Ophelia. 40,000 brothers could not ellipsis make up my son. And he's also telling this to Learties who's, you know, coloring him and he's challenging him to a door. He's telling a Learties, Learties, I promise you, I loved Ophelia. I loved her. No, but you know, no person has loved her more than I did. 40,000 brothers. So a brother like you, a brotherly love like yours, cannot match how much I loved her. Right. And of course, this is for us as the audience, we're a little bit confused because we want to hang on. This is the same Ophelia that you were really horrible to. You told her to get the ternunnery. You basically stated that you don't trust her intentions. Okay. So here we can see that Hamlet also in many ways is not very consistent in his actions. Now the one of analysis you want to focus on is the hyperbole of 40,000 brothers. This is when he suddenly realizes he really, truly loves Ophelia. The next quotation relating to Hamlet is when before, so this is once he's come back from England and Learties is challenging him to a duel and he's talking to her ratio and her ratios basically showing, oh, I'm not sure they should go into this duel. I'm really worried. And Hamlet says, no, I'm a man of action. Sometimes it's good to be rash. Sometimes it's very good to act before you think. Okay. And he's basically states, our indiscretion sometimes serves as well ellipsis divinity shakes our ends. So basically what he's basically saying within discretion is, you know, sometimes it's actually good to be haste to make haste. Sometimes it's good to just act quickly and then think afterwards, which is what he should have done from the start. Okay. So here he's basically justifying getting into this deal with Learties. And of course at this stage he's decided, okay, I'm going to kill Claudius. However, there's some irony in this, in this statement because he's basically saying, you know, sometimes it's really good to act rash. You know, and when, when you act rash, sometimes it's God divinity working through you. The irony in this is that he's taken so long to get to that point. Okay. So actually he's done the opposite of acting rash. He's procrastinated. Okay. So there's also a little bit of humor to this. Now the word of analysis you want to focus on is the sibilance in sometimes and serves. Now in act five, so this is the final act. And once Hamlet knows that his death is imminent and he also witnesses his mother dying, he then finally avenges his father's death. He then forces Claudius to drink from the poisoned cup and he calls him an incestuous murderous damned dame. Now here, of course, we can see that he's really angry. He's unleashed in his anger. And this is illustrated through the listing of these adjectives. Okay. And also the literation of D and damned dame. Now here, of course, we can see that Hamlet finally avenges Claudius's death, but it's a little bit late. Okay. All of this damage has been done. And also ultimately Hamlet doesn't even live to see the consequences of his actions because he dies soon. The final quotation relating to Hamlet, and of course, this illustrates how his Hamasha, his fatal flaw, which is his procrastination, has led to his own final death is once he has been stabbed by the Airtis's poison sword. He then turns to his really good friend and says, I am dead Horatio, wretched queen, I do. Okay. And here, I do means by. Okay. So he's basically also telling the dead, the dead body of his mom, oh, by dead mother, wretched mother. So he can't even help himself. It can't help insulting even his mother into death. Okay. Now here, what this is illustrating again is Hamlet has finally acted, but he's acted too late. Okay. It's procrastination, got the best of him. And now he has avenged his father, but still ended up dying as has the entire Danish royal family. The one of analysis you want to focus on is the assonance of E in wretched queen and adieu. And of course here, when he's telling his mom, his mom's dead body by before he dies, this is what we call an exclamatory sentence. Okay. So that's really it. When it comes to the key quotations that you should consider with Hamlet's character, he's a very complex character. There's lots of aspects and facets to his character that are really fascinating. However, of course, also we can be quite critical of him in the sense that he takes too long to act. Okay. His procrastination gets the best of him. And that's his Hamasha, which contrasts him to Layertes and Fortenborough, who are very quick to act. Okay. They are foils to Hamlet's character. So that's it. And thank you so much for listening.