Agenda: Vocab Review Vocab Quiz Act I and II Review Hamlet’s 3 rd Soliloquy Nunnery Scene Monday, January 12, 2015 HW: Act I and II quiz tomorrow!

ambiguous – (adj.) unclear; uncertain auspicious – (adj.) favorable; well-timed contrive – (v) invent; design dexterity – (n) skillfulness; proficiency enmity – (n) hatred; loathing impious –(adj.) unholy; showing lack of respect for a god obsequious – (adj.) overly respectful; too eager to help or obey obstinate – (adj.) stubborn pernicious – (adj.) harmful; destructive portentous – (adj.) ominous; threatening usurps – (v) captures; seizes

Vocab Review What does Claudius mean when he tells Hamlet, “this is obsequious sorrow”? What makes the ghost a portentous figure?

Act I and II Quiz Tomorrow! What kind of a man is Polonius?

Who said this? “Thus was I sleeping, by a brother’s hand/ Of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatched,/ Cut off even in the blossom of my sin,/ Unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled,/ No reck’ning made, but sent to my account with all my imperfections on my head.”

Who said this? “That can I. At least the whisper goes so: our last king, whose image even by now appeared to us was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway, thereto pricked on by the most emulate pride, dared to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet did slay this Fortinbras, who, by a sealed compact well ratified by law and heraldry, did forfeit with his life, all those his lands which he stood seized of, to the conqueror.”

First Soliloquy Why does Hamlet compare his father to Hyperion and his uncle to a satyr?

Second Soliloquy Why is Hamlet so disgusted with himself?

1. To be, or not to be. The question is should I continue living or should I end it all? Is life worth living or not?

2 Which is more noble –to endure the suffering of life or to fight against it by putting an end to life?

3 To die means to sleep forever, to put an end to consciously enduring the pain of living life as a human being. That’s an ending to wish for – just for it all to stop.

4 But does it all stop after death? But in that sleep, we could dream (be haunted by thoughts). That’s the problem. We are afraid of the possibility of what dreams might come to us in this eternal sleep. They probably won’t be good dreams! And this is a sleep that we cannot wake from.

5 That’s the consideration that stops us from committing suicide. For who would agree to suffer through the whips of scorn, contempt, rejected love, disrespect, humiliation, injustice? –when you’re capable of releasing yourself from it?!

6 Who would endure this unless they dreaded the unknown of what comes after life?

7 Overthinking takes the action out of plan and makes us all cowards.

The Nunnery Scene Truman Show - Do something! Hamlet is thinking, “This isn’t how you talk to me?! What’s going on?!”