Showing posts with label Key Passages. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Key Passages. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

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.
Key Passages
Act V
Lee Slug

V.i
"Let me see. Alas, poor Yorick....Make her laugh at that,"
Hamlet's nostalgic emotions expressed in this soliloquy illuminate how he knew Yorick when he was a child and how quickly time decays humans, physically and spiritually. This soliloquy speaks to the fundamental idea that everyone returns to the earth, no matter how noble and mighty he/she might be. Also, this morbid talk of death in scene one foreshadows the pending death of all of the main characters in the castle. 

V.i
"I loved Ophelia, Forty thousand brothers...I'll rant as well as thou."
Hamlet is expressing his deep love for Ophelia; he exclaims that he would do anything for Ophelia and no man could match his love for her. This makes the death of Ophelia so much more tragic because the audience knows that it all stems from Hamlet's misinterpretation of Ophelia giving his gifts back, which, is a signature of Shakespeare. 


Sunday, November 11, 2012

Key Passages - Tevie Slug

III. I
Hamlet:   I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God
    has given you one face, and you make yourselves
    another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and
    nick-name God's creatures, and make your wantonness
    your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath
    made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages:
    those that are married already, all but one, shall
    live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a
    nunnery, go. 

I found this passage rather interesting, for a couple of reasons. First of all, Hamlet's mention of a kind of "two-facedness" is quite ironic, especially considering that word's popularity  in the parlance of our time. But also, that aspect of the passage really highlights and illuminates that whole theme of the play being appearance vs. reality; no one seems to know the truth about anyone else or the entire situation itself. Everything is a ruse and there are misunderstandings left and right that have already lead to one death and will probably lead to more. 

III. III
Hamlet:   Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;
    And now I'll do't. And so he goes to heaven;
    And so am I revenged. That would be scann'd:
    A villain kills my father; and for that,
    I, his sole son, do this same villain send
    To heaven.
    O, this is hire and salary, not revenge.
    He took my father grossly, full of bread;
    With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;
    And how his audit stands who knows save heaven?
    But in our circumstance and course of thought,
    'Tis heavy with him: and am I then revenged,
    To take him in the purging of his soul,
    When he is fit and season'd for his passage?
    No!
    Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent:
    When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,
    Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed;
    At gaming, swearing, or about some act
    That has no relish of salvation in't;
    Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,
    And that his soul may be as damn'd and black
    As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays:
    This physic but prolongs thy sickly days. 

This passage is extremely important in revealing Hamlet's true feelings towards King Claudius, the murder of his father, the Ghost's vengeful intentions and his own role in the whole situation. Hamlet expresses in this soliloquy that he understands the repercussions that will follow him because of his actions and therefore wants to wait for the most horrible occasion to finally go through with the deed to ensure that he'll be sending King Claudius straight to hell.  

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

KEY PASSAGES

II:ii (lines 311-323)
 "I have of late,—but wherefore I know not,—lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire,—why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?"

The significance of this passage lies in that it holds Hamlet's true feelings about the conditions of his world. It is reflective of the sad state he has been in since his father's death. Hamlet describes the world in a rhetorical exercise that ends in the dismissal of it all being "dust". He acknowledges that the world means nothing to him, and this is a key aspect for the understanding of the entire play.

II;ii (lines 595-613)
"Fie upon't foh! About, my brain!....The play's the thing wherein I catch the conscience of the King."

This is a key passage because it contain's Hamlet's plan to prove what he believes about the true conditions of his father's death. The plan is to put on a play for the King that is similar to the account of the King Hamlet's death from scene I. Hamlet plans to expose the King's guilty conscience by inciting some sort of reaction from him. This will give him the proof he needs to avenge the death of his father.

                                                                                
                                                                                                                   -Sam Slug

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Key Passages

1. I.ii [Lines 134-164] 

Hamlet
"O that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead! — nay, not so much, not two:
So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother,
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on: and yet, within a month, — 
Let me not think on't, — Frailty, thy name is woman! — 
A little month; or ere those shoes were old
With which she followed my poor father's body
Like Niobe, all tears; — why she, even she, — 
O God! a beast that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer, — married with mine uncle,
My father's brother; but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules: within a month;
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married: — O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not, nor it cannot come to good;
But break my heart, — for I must hold my tongue!"

Hamlet's first soliloquy of the play is significant in that it reveals his true and deepest feelings about the situation that he is put in. After Claudius and Gertrude express their utter distaste in Hamlet's ongoing mourning over his father's death, Hamlet then begins to express his true feelings. In this soliloquy, he expresses how if taking one's own life were not to send you straight to hell, then he would do so. He is completely depressed and in grief over this. He is also outraged over the fact that his mother went on to marry so quickly and even worse, she marries her deceased husband's brother! This passage sheds light onto Hamlet's deep relationship with his father and that he was a loved and respected man; also the hurt that he feels over his mother's haste in remarrying without mourning for a respectable time.

2. I.v [Lines 49-98]

Ghost
"Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts—
O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power
So to seduce!—won to his shameful lust
The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen.
O Hamlet, what a falling off was there!
From me, whose love was of that dignity
That it went hand in hand even with the vow
I made to her in marriage, and to decline
Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor
To those of mine.
But virtue, as it never will be moved,
Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,
So lust, though to a radiant angel linked,
Will sate itself in a celestial bed
And prey on garbage.
But soft! Methinks I scent the morning air.
Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard,
My custom always of the afternoon,
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole
With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,
And in the porches of my ears did pour
The leperous distilment, whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man
That swift as quicksilver it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body
And with a sudden vigor doth posset
And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome blood. So did it mine.
And a most instant tetter barked about,
Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust
All my smooth body.
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand
Of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatched,
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,

Unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled.

No reckoning made, but sent to my account

With all my imperfections on my head.
Oh, horrible, oh, horrible, most horrible!
If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not.
Let not the royal bed of Denmark be
A couch for luxury and damnèd incest.
But howsoever thou pursuest this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge
To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once.
The glowworm shows the matin to be near,
And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me."

Once King Hamlet reveals to Hamlet that he was murdered by his brother, the King goes on to tell Hamlet how he did so. Indeed he was poisoned by his brother. Once the king was dead, Claudius then goes on to seduce Gertrude and she, being a lustful person, fell for it and gave in to his seductions. The king then goes on to tell Hamlet to seek revenge, but do it without harming himself or his mother, for she can be left with her own guilt. It's important to show the contrasting characteristics between King Hamlet and Claudius. This passage is important to examine in that it establishes the difference between good and evil. Although Hamlet would like his son to seek revenge on his murderer, he does not wish harm for him. This passage also marks the reason for revenge. Now that Hamlet knows what happened to his father, and with his father's "blessing," he can now seek to avenge his father and take back what is rightfully his.
xoxo,
Kara Slug