Personal Reaction Act V
Spencer Carr

Now this is what we've all been waiting for, finally some action! the King finally dies, but at a terrible cost, The Queen, Laertes, and Hamlet was slain in the process of Hamlet avenging his father. Also the fact that Fortinbras got more than his father's lost land, he controls both Norway and Denmark now.

Act V Symbolism

Symbol

Yorick's Skull: The former court jester's skull is defiantly the most recognizable symbol from Hamlet altogether. The skull represents and presents the inevitability of death to Hamlet. this also goes hand in hand with the overwhelming theme of death in the final act of Hamlet, with the opening of the act in the graveyard, the funeral, and the deaths of nearly every major character in Hamlet, for death became a reality.

Allusion


"How the knave (The Gravedigger) jowls it to the ground, as if it were Cain’s jawbone, that did the first murder!" act 5, s1 78-79

An allusion to Genesis 4:1-2, The Gravedigger throws skulls on the ground as if it were the instrument of the first murder, of course the skull is of Yorick, which takes Hamlet to the realization that all men will soon enough become dust.  

-Spencer  

Clarification Questions Deaner act 5

1) Do you think Hamlet ended up in heaven or hell? Why?

2) Did Hamlet get the revenge he was seeking?

3) What did Hamlet's last words signify?

4) Put in your own word's the soliloquy when Hamlet is talking about Yorick.

5) How do you think the story would have ended if Hamlet did not kill Polonious, but Claudius?

Deaner personal reaction act 5

This is what I expected from a Shakespeare tragedy. Everyone dies in one scene, and it just leaves me with a sad feeling for about 5 minutes. But then I wake up from that jaded slumber and am happy in the fact that Hamlet can be at peace in a forever sleep whether in heaven or hell.  

Artistic Flare

Basically this just represents the fact that everyone and their twelfth cousin dies at the end. It's quite like a massacre in the fact that they all die in one scene and it really adds to the tragic play Shakespeare has laid out. You're kind of just left shocked/stunned like this dinosaur. Now they weren't all "friends" per say, but I think we get the point.
xoxox, 
Kara

The Asian Reacts to Act V

EVERYONE IS DEAD. However, I am quite glad that Hamlet got revenge on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in a hasty manner or else that might be a whole other play to be written. Hamlet FINALLY got to avenge his father. It took him 140 pages to do so and it finally happened!!! I found it ironic how the drink meant to poison Hamlet, poisoned his mother instead and in a way, Claudius ended up killing Gertrude. Fortinbras becoming King of Denmark: didn't see that one coming. But good for Horatio for staying true throughout the whole play. Maybe that's why he ended up living while everyone else around him dropped like flies.

xoxo, Kara

Deaner's Key Passages ACT 4

How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event,
A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward, I do not know
Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do;'
Sith I have cause and will and strength and means
To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me:
Witness this army of such mass and charge
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death and danger dare,
Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!


This passage is important because Hamlet is realizing the true weight of his task of revenge. 



OPHELIA

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray,
love, remember: and there is pansies. that's for thoughts.

LAERTES

A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.

OPHELIA

There's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue
for you; and here's some for me: we may call it
herb-grace o' Sundays: O you must wear your rue with
a difference. There's a daisy: I would give you
some violets, but they withered all when my father
died: they say he made a good end,--

This part is interesting because Ophelia refers to violets, just like in ACT 1. Hamlet is compared to a violet that will not last, and in this passage she refers to the violets as dead, which can be interpreted that Hamlet is dead to her.