Name:
Teacher:
Action vs.
Class:
Date:
- Before Viewing Act IV 1. How has inaction played a role in your life? Discuss a time when you wanted to say something, but didn’t. Or
when you wanted to do something, but didn’t. What held you back? Explain. Minimum 5 sentences in length.
- After Viewing Act IV 1. One of the great debates about this play is whether Hamlet is a man of ACTION or a man of INACTION.
List out each of the actions that Hamlet takes and each of the actions that he could have taken within the
context of the play, but didn't.
ACTIONS:
INACTIONS:
CONCLUSION: Is Hamlet was a man of ACTION or a man of INACTION? Justify your answer.
2. List the characters in this play who betray or disappoint Hamlet and describe their ACTIONS. Then list the
characters that stand by him and describe their ACTIONS.
DISLOYAL CHARACTERS:
LOYAL CHARACTERS:
CONCLUSION: What does this say to you about Hamlet's world?
- Viewing Questions: Act IV1. Explain Hamlet’s answer to what happened to Polonius. What is the significance of his response?
2. What are the obvious and also underlying reasons that Hamlet is sent to England? What is meant to happen
there? What actually happens?
3. Why doesn't Ophelia take revenge on Hamlet for her father's death?
4. Ophelia has fallen into madness. Do her statements and singing suggest she is only disturbed by her father’s
death, or is something else troubling her? Explain.
5. Do you think Ophelia’s death was an accident or suicide? What was the purpose of her death (what effect
does it have on the plot)?
6. Each of the characters below lost a person important to them. Describe how each dealt with their grief and
whether those actions were healthy.
Hamlet:
Gertrude:
Ophelia:
Laertes:
Rhetorical Analysis
On his way to England, Hamlet observes Fortinbras leading his troops through Denmark toward Poland. The
Norwegians plan to wage war over a worthless patch of land in Poland. In this soliloquy, Hamlet lingers behind
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to reflect on the fact that these Norwegians and Poles are willing to die over land
worth virtually nothing to anyone. Yet, he ponders, he possesses sufficient reason to take action against his
enemy, but remains paralyzed (4:4:34-68).
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!
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Purpose: What is the purpose of the speech?
Audience: Who is the
intended audience?
Rhetoric: What rhetorical strategies
does the speaker use?
Persona: What public image is the speaker giving?
Argument: What is the
main idea?