Hamlet: Act 1 Scene 2/3 Questions

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

Hamlet appears to be in a gloomy mood, wearing fully black and being quiet. 

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

• He married his late brother's wife; which in the time period of the story is considered incestuous
• He married Gertrude immediately after his brother died; for which he would be looked at as apathetic to his brother and his kin.

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

For returning to Paris.

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

King Claudius's actions since the death of Hamlet Sr. have made young Hamlet extremely disapproving of him. When Claudius refers to Hamlet as his cousin, young Hamlet remarks that

Claudius was little more than 'kin', referring to familial formality, and less than kind, to mean both that he is worse than the kind of human his father was, and also the unkindness he had shown by marrying his sister-in-law immediately after Hamlet Sr.'s death.

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

After Claudius's comment on Hamlet's dark attire and gloomy mood, saying as if he had a cloud hanging over him, Hamlet replies with the pun in the statement. Here, the sun refers to both Sun/son; as after his father's death, Claudius keeps mentioning him as his son and his feelings of disapproval towards him deepens. 

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

Hamlet was still grieving over his father's death when his mother abruptly married his uncle Claudius. The death of his father who he admired and possibly idolized, combined with his opportunist uncle taking over the power and marrying his mother right after his father's funeral are what set him off into his painful soliloquy. The thing that troubled him the most was that the haste with which his mother stopped her grievances for her husband and married his brother made him question whether she really loved the man who loved her so much that he kept the wind from blowing on her face. 

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.

In the given lines, Hamlet talks about how his outfit represents his state of mind after his father's death. Gertrude questioning him about his gloomy outfit makes him state his emotions out loud, and express that his dark colors and appearance is derived from his grief, at that moment. 

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

He mocks the fact that the meat prepared for the funeral meal has been presented again, for the wedding.

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

That they have seen a ghost in the halls of the castle and that it may be the ghost of his late father. 

Act 1 scenes 3-4

1)    What is Laertes advice to Ophelia?

That she should stay away from Hamlet since he is preaching lies and has an ulterior motive. 

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?

The sentence means that young flowers are often ruined by worms before they bloom. Laertes uses this ideology with the idea of a decaying garden to tell Ophelia that Hamlet's ways of seduction will ruin her life before she can become a proper woman.

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

To her brother's advice, Ophelia replies that her brother shouldn't be like a priest who doesn't practice what he teaches; showing her the narrow path to heaven while he remains lawless. She reminds him that if he is so careful of her following his rules, he must follow them too. 

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

1. Don't say what you think, and don't act too quickly on your thought.
2. Be friendly but don't overdo it
3. If you find true friends, hold on to them

4. Hear everyone, but listen carefully.
5. Be frugal, but not in clothes, because attire makes a man, especially in France. 

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

Polonius 

Polonius calls Hamlet's offerings of love 'tenders' offered to a baby; meaning Ophelia is too innocent to understand the real intention behind Hamlet's affection. 

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

"When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul

Lends the tongue vows. These blazes, daughter,

Giving more light than heat, extinct in both

Even in their promise as it is a-making,

You must not take for fire." 

Polonius compares Hamlet to a man on fire with his grief: his promises worth nothing because he will swear anything when he is in a state like this. He also says that the heart on fire gives off more light than heat, meaning that it seems more promising and pleasing than it actually is. And according to him, Hamlet's promises will expire before even the fire goes out. 

7)    What is Polonius’ command to Ophelia?

To avoid Hamlet, and spend less time with him.