Month: November 2015

“For who would bear the whips and scorns of time”

“SCORN”
noun
1.
“a feeling and expression of contempt or disdain for someone or something.”

This phrase is extracted from Hamlet’s soliloquy in the play Hamlet by Shakespeare and the definition from an online dictionary.

Whips are a form of torture and are weapons that don’t need much force to have a big impact. By using this word I think that Shakespeare is trying to show that life causes torture without effort and that the pain is not bearable. Whips were also an old fashioned form of discipline which Shakespeare also uses to imply that life disciplines us and we sometimes can’t take it. Within the play I think that the situation that Hamlet is in, causes him to question whether he should take and withstand the blows and the disciplines from his life or just end it all with one simple action.

Scorn is a feature to describe a human action which shows that Shakespeare is personifying Hamlet’s situation and makes it look like a deliberate act of Evil.

This phrase is a metaphor to describe Hamlet’s dilemma as a person rather than a thing.

Another metaphor similar to the previous one that Shakespeare uses in the play is when Hamlet is delivering his soliloquy.

“Or to take arms against a sea of troubles”

This to me means that Shakespeare is referring to life as a journey on sea that sometimes gives is storms and huge waves and to overcome it, we need to take arms and stand firm. This metaphor also implies that in the play, that Hamlet wants help and he wants to tell someone else about his dilemma but he can’t and he is now in a sea of troubles with endless waves of problems that he has to face on his own which will steal him away with it. In the play Shakespeare uses this metaphor to show Hamlet’s situation as him being in the middle of the sea with no help around him leaving him to face it all on his own.

In this scene, two gravediggers argue about wether Ophelia deserves a christian funeral. one of the defends her and the other explains the the gravedigger that it was her choice and that she decided to shorten her life. one of the gravediggers leave and Hamlet and Horatio arrive. They discuss how the gravedigger is throwing around skulls of people who were once important people and skulls that once spoke words and sang. In his digging the gravedigger finds the skull of Yorick, one of Hamlet’s old friends and Hamlet asks if Alexander the Great looked like that once and the gravediggers tells him that he did and he even smelt that bad. Hamlet is surprised at how low humans can go, that even the greatest can fall to the same place. the King, Gertrude, Laertes and a Priest enter with a coffin. The priest tells Laertes that Ophelia should be buried outside the church graveyard and should have stones thrown on her body for taking her own life. Laertes gets angry and tells the priest to perform a proper ceremony just like the other ones. He jumps into the grave and demands to be buried alive with Ophelia and curses the person responsible for her death. Hamlet appears and jumps in the grave with Laertes and they both wrestle. Hamlet proves that he can be as crazy as Laertes, then he leaves.

In this scene, Claudius admits to Laertes that Hamlet murdered his father. Laertes asks Claudius why he let Hamlet get away with such a crime but Claudius tells him that he was holding back but wasn’t planning on letting Hamlet get away with his crime. In the middle of the conversation, the messenger enters with the letter for the king from Hamlet, the King is then assured by the letters that Hamlet is still alive so he and Laertes come up with a plan to kill Hamlet and their plan is to organise a fencing match between the two but Laertes’ sword will not be blunted like Hamlet’s. Laertes will dip his sword into poison and if that doesn’t work the Claudius will have a drink made for Hamlet with poison in it to make sure he dies. Gertrude enters interrupting their plans and tells them about Ophelia drowning and explains her death in detail. Laertes is enraged by this and runs out.

In this scene Horatio receives a letter sent to him by Hamlet and the letter tell him to lead the messenger to the King to hand him letters and tells him to go to Hamlet as fast as he would run from death because Hamlet needed to tell him things about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

In this scene, Horatio and a gentleman convince Gertrude to talk to Ophelia as she is crazed and talking nonsense. Ophelia enters and Gertrude talks to her but Ophelia sings about the sad death of her father and after a while King Claudius enters and talks to Ophelia and they hear noises from outside. Laertes enters and is angry but Claudius manages to calm him down and tells Laertes that if he is found guilty of Laertes’ fathers death then he will give Laertes all of his possesions but if Laertes is found guilty then Claudius will try his hardest to get revenge for Polonius’ death.

In this scene, Fortinbras enters and asks for permission to go through Denmark to get to Poland. Hamlet enters and talks with the Captain and discusses what Fortinbras is going to do and the Captain mentions that the land that the Norwegian are going to fight for will bring them no extra income or benefit and isn’t doing much for the Polish either. The Captain exits and Hamlet is left alone and talks to himself. He talks about the pointless battle that is about to occur and that humans were not made to just sleep and eat, they were made to do more. He  thinks about the deed he has to fulfill, which is to kill his uncle.

In this scene, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern return to Claudius saying that they can’t get Hamlet to tell them where they can find the body. Claudius calls Hamlet in and tells him that he is gonna be sent to England. Hamlet refers to Claudius as his mother because he married Hamlet’s mum and they became one flesh. Claudius then ends up alone and talks to the English King as if he were there and describes Hamlet as a fever on his brain that must be killed as soon a she gets to England.

In this scene Rosencrantz and Guildenstern look for Hamlet and find him. They ask him where Polonius’s body is then Hamlet responds with confusing riddles and insults. He calls Rosencrantz a “sponge” soaking up the king’s favor. Hamlet agrees to see Claudius, but then runs off.