Hamlet Act 1 Questions Essays - Characters In Hamlet,

Hamlet Act 1 Questions Scene 1: The opening mood of the play is dim and secretive. This may imply that something is wrong around the castle. This is confirmed when we learn about the ghost that is rumoured to be travelling around the castle, in the recent nights. Horatio provides an explanation for the tension between Fortinbras of Norway and Hamlet of Denmark. He explains that Hamlet went to war with Fortinbras and Hamlet ended up winning, which allowed for him to claim all the land. It is now suspected that young Fortinbras. A ghost may be haunting the castle because King Hamlet has just died. Scene 2: 1. A) He justifies his marriage by claiming that it was in the kingdoms own interests and responsibilities to move on, and the only way to do this was to marry Gertrude and become king himself. He says that they married with one eye full of happiness and another with sorrow, meaning that the kings death brought sorrow but to move on they needed to get married which brought happiness. He ends off his justification by claiming that delight and misery were both balanced due to the circumstances. B) His solution to the Fortinbras situation is to send a letter to the very ill King of Norway to try and get young Fortinbras to leave Denmark alone. This doesn't seem as if it will be very effective because he himself said that the king of Norway is very ill and bedridden, so he is very limited in terms of what he can do as of now. The fact that young Fortinbras is also said to be preparing for battle as speak (as said by Horatio in scene 1), the letter seems to be an under-reaction, as young Fortinbras could strike at anytime. C) His feelings towards Laertes and Polonius show that he cares a lot about them and thinks very highly of them, almost referring to Laertes as someone who's basically of blood relation to him, and that he should be granted basically anything he wishes without any doubt.