HAMLET ACT 1

HAMLET ACT 1 Scene 2
1. What is odd about Hamlet’s appearance in the opening of scene two?





2. Explain (give at least two reasons) why Claudius needs to justify his marriage in the opening of scene two.








3. Laertes asks the King for leave to do what, specifically?

4. Explain Hamlet’s insult when he says, “A little more than kin and less than kind.”







5. Explain Hamlet’s use of pun in the line, “Not so my lord, I am too much in the sun.”






6. In Hamlet’s first soliloquy it is obvious that what troubles him most is?











7. What does Hamlet mean by the following lines

“Seems, madam? Nay, it is. I know not ‘seems’.
‘Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forc’d breath,
No, nore the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected havior of the visage,
Together will all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
That can denote me truly. These indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play;
But I have that within which passes show,
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.



8. What does Hamlet say about the baked meats and the funeral and the wedding.





9. What news does Horatio, Marcellus and Barnardo bring to Hamlet.


Act 1 scenes 3-4

1) What is Laertes advice to Ophelia?





2) How does “The canker galls the infants of the spring/ too oft before their buttons be disclos’d” fit into the ideology of the decaying garden?





3) What analogy does Ophelia give to her brother as an answer to his advice? What does she mean?






4) List five of the “few precepts” that Polonius gives to Laertes.







5) In lines 105-109, what is the metaphor that Polonius uses to describe Hamlet’s words of love?







6) List and explain one metaphor found in the lines 115-135.





7) What is Polonius’ command to Ophelia?





8) In scene 4, what is Hamlet talking about in lines 13-38?








9) Why doesn’t Horatio want Hamlet to follow the ghost?







10) What is Hamlet’s command to the three guards?