Hamlet- Act 5

Scene 1 In a graveyard near a church, two gravediggers discuss the imminent funeral of Ophelia and debate the theological issue of her burial, after a presumed suicide, in consecrated ground. Shakespeare’s audience would be familiar with the church’s denial of Christian burial rights to suicides on the grounds that they were guilty of a moral sin. Hamlet and Horatio enter, and Hamlet muses on human morality. When a gravedigger identifies a skull as belonging to Yorick, old Hamlet’s court jester whom Hamlet knew when the prince was a child, Hamlet philosophizes on the inevitability of death as the common fate of humankind, rich and poor alike.

Scene 1 The court party enters, accompanying Ophelia’s funeral procession. Laertes argues with one of the clergy about the proper extend of the funeral rites and then, crazed with grief, leaps into his sister’s grave. Hamlet, too, leaps into the grave and grapples with Laertes, defiantly declaring that he had loved Ophelia. Claudius and Gertrude call him mad, and the king reminds Laertes in an aside to remember the plot.

Scene 1- Digging Deeper Relating to the themes of corruption, disease, and death, this scene functions as a graphic dramatization of Hamlet’s final acceptance of the inevitability of death. The hero has longed for death in his emotional anguish; he has debated intellectually the question of suicide; he has killed Polonius with his sword and made macabre jokes about death; and he has been powerfully motivated by the sight of Fortinbras’s soldiers, ready to risk their lives.

Now, however, Hamlet encounters death physically; the rotting corpses in the graveyeard, the skull of the jester Yorick, and the sight of Ophelia’s body being borne to the grave impress on him the crude facts of human mortality. Hamlet’s leaping into the grave to grapple with Laertes may be seen as symbolic of his readiness to avenge his father and to die.

Irony Although Hamlet abandons his pretense of insanity, Claudius persists in calling Hamlet mad (perhaps for the benefit of Laertes, the king’s instrument of revenge); so does Gertrude, who has no way of apprehending Hamlet’s new self-knowledge and who presumably remains faithful to her promise at the end of Act 3 to cooperate with his pretense of madness.

Scene 2 Hamlet relates to Horatio what occurred aboard the ship: He discovered the commission from Claudius commanding his execution in England and substituted a new commission ordering that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern be executed. Osric, a foppish young courtier, enters to tell Hamlet that Claudius has made a wager on the outcome of a fencing bout between Hamlet and Laertes. Horatio urges Hamlet not to fight, saying he believes the prince will lose. However, Hamlet calmly reassures his friend, saying that he must accept his fate.

Claudius, Gertrude, Laertes, and the court party enter in preparation for the fencing bout. Hamlet reassures Laertes of his sincere friendship. Claudius places the cup of poisoned wine on the banquet table and, when Hamlet scores the first hit, offers the cup to Hamlet, who declines. When Hamlet scores a second hit, Gertrude picks up the poisoned wine and ignoring Claudius’s protests, drinks to Hamlet’s health.

On the third pass, Laertes wounds Hamlet with the poisoned foil On the third pass, Laertes wounds Hamlet with the poisoned foil. In the scuffle that follows, the foils are exchanged, and Hamlet wounds Laertes with the same poisoned foil. Gertrude falls, crying out that she has been poisoned. About to die, Laertes confesses to Hamlet the trick of the poisoned foil. In a fury, Hamlet strikes Claudius with the poisoned weapon and kills him.

After Laertes and Hamlet exchange forgiveness, Fortinbras enters, and Hamlet predicts that the young Norwegian will be elected king of Denmark. Horatio sadly blesses Hamlet as the prince dies. Fortinbras assumes command and order a military funeral with honors for Hamlet.

Scene 2- Digging Deeper Perhaps the most important thematic aspect of this scene is the hero’s philosophical acceptance of death. As he says to Horatio, “There’s special providence in the fall of a sparrow … the readiness is all.” Hamlet’s use of acting metaphors in this scene is significant: “Ere I could make a prologue to my brains,/They had begun the play.” throughout much of the action Hamlet ahs been forced to play a part; however, the time is soon to come when all pretense will be stripped away.

Plot and Theme The fencing bout and its catastrophic outcome comprise the dramatic climax of the play. The strokes of chance or coincidence that serve to foil both strategems of Claudius’s plot are simply and naturally motivated: Gertrude drinks from the poisoned cup because she wants to cheer her son on with a toast, and Laertes inadvertently loses hold of his poisoned weapon in a scuffle with Hamlet. At the climactic moment of revenge, when Hamlet stabs Claudius, the princes puns sarcastically on the word union- referring to the pearl the king had hypocritically offered him as a prize as well as to Claudius’s incestuous marriage with Gertrude.

The brief falling action and resolution of the play are notable: Fortinbras orders a military funeral for Hamlet, even though the hero seems more scholarly than soldierly. Perhaps, after the hero’s suspicions of his own cowardice, the playwright wished to emphasize Hamlet’s courage in facing and overcoming his doubts, in considering all points of view honestly and unflinchingly, and in finding at last the will to act.