Hamlet lifts the arras and discovers Polonius’s body: he has not killed the king and achieved his revenge but has murdered the relatively innocent Polonius. He bids the old man farewell, calling him an “intruding fool” (III.

Dealing with these hardships causes Hamlet to change during the course of the play. Hamlet’s change from a peaceful to bloodthirsty man is evident through his anger over his situation, his wanting revenge, and his determination to finally get what he wants. Hamlet’s peaceful life was flipped upside down very quickly.

Summary: Act III, scene i. Claudius and Gertrude discuss Hamlet’s behavior with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who say they have been unable to learn the cause of his melancholy. They tell the king and queen about Hamlet’s enthusiasm for the players. Gertrude exits, and Polonius directs Ophelia to walk around the lobby.

Hamlet enters and sees Claudius in prayer. He recognizes his perfect opportunity to kill Claudius, but stops himself. He remembers that Claudius killed King Hamlet without allowing him any opportunity to make amends for his sins, and that King Hamlet now languishes in purgatory awaiting entry to heaven.

Hamlet hesitates to kill Claudius in act 3 because Claudius appears to be praying. Hamlet fears that if Claudius dies while praying, when his soul is at its most pure, he will go directly to heaven. Hamlet wants Claudius to go to hell for his sins, so he reasons he cannot risk killing him now.

Hamlet is determined to kill Claudius. So, he slips into his room and he is ready to kill him when, suddenly, he overhears Claudius praying for forgiveness for his sins. The fact that Hamlet finds his uncle praying is important because it makes Hamlet postpone his revenge.

Hamlet delays killing Claudius because Claudius represents Hamlet’s innermost desires to sleep with his mother Gertrude. And by killing Claudius, Hamlet would be killing a part of himself. In Act IV, Scene 1, Claudius and the queen are able to confer privately simply by dismissing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Climax When Hamlet stabs Polonius through the arras in Act III, scene iv, he commits himself to overtly violent action and brings himself into unavoidable conflict with the king.

Acting impulsively or madly, Hamlet mistakes Polonius for Claudius and kills him. The play’s falling action deals with the consequences of Polonius’s death. Hamlet is sent away, Ophelia goes mad and Laertes returns from France to avenge his father’s death.

Hamlet tries to kill Claudius three times. What are they? Hamlet tries to kill Claudius when he’s at prayer, but he holds back because he’s worried that if he kills Claudius, then his wicked uncle will go to heaven. He tries again in the next scene, only instead of killing Claudius, he ends up killing Polonius instead.

As said previously, Polonius’ death also leads to the demise of Hamlet because Laertes wants to avenge his father’s killer. Laertes’ and Claudius’ plan to kill Hamlet by poisoning his drink and by poisoning Laertes’ sword. So at the end, the death of Polonius leads to the death of all major characters of the play.

But the most tragic in terms of setting the play into motion is Act 3 scene 4 where Hamlet kills Polonius in his mother’s closet. Believing it to be the king, Hamlet kills Polonius and subsequently sets up the demise of Ophelia, Laertes, his parents (uncle), and most importantly himself.

Fortinbras is the first characters we (without even trying) can compare to Hamlet. Fortinbras acting as a foil to Hamlet, Decides to handle his plan in a much more active, direct way; he attempts to fight for what his father lost.

Although Horatio loves his friend and at first wants to follow him in death, Hamlet convinces him that Horatio must live to tell Hamlet’s story to the world. His role is to serve as a confidant to Hamlet and to offer advice. As a foil, he calls out attention to Hamlet’s main character traits as well.

Shakespeare includes characters in Hamlet who are obvious foils for Hamlet, including, most obviously, Horatio, Fortinbras, Claudius, and Laertes.

Laertes wishes to kill Hamlet after Hamlet murders Polonius and Hamlet wants to kill Claudius for the murder of King Hamlet. Both succeed in their quest for revenge. The reason he is included, as a foil of Hamlet, is he also seeks revenge for the death of his father, the king.

Laertes

Ophelia is a foil to Hamlet. The character of Ophelia is necessary so that the audience will give Hamlet a chance to get over his madness and follow his heart. Similarities are an important part of being a foil. One similarity that Hamlet and Ophelia share are that they both are children of controlling parents.

Claudius

The queen falls. Laertes, poisoned by his own sword, declares, “I am justly kill’d with my own treachery” (V. ii. Laertes tells Hamlet that he, too, has been slain, by his own poisoned sword, and that the king is to blame both for the poison on the sword and for the poison in the cup.

Meaning of Hamlet’s Last Words He says repeatedly to his friend Horatio ”I am dying,” ”I die,” or even ”I am dead.

Hamlet tells Laertes that it was his madness that killed Polonius, not him. Gertrude drinks the poisoned wine on accident and dies soon after. Laertes wounds Hamlet with the sword, causing a scuffle in which they accidentally switch swords. Hamlet then wounds Laertes with the poisoned sword.

In Act 4 Scene 7, Queen Gertrude reports that Ophelia had climbed into a willow tree (There is a willow grows aslant the brook), and that the branch had broken and dropped Ophelia into the brook, where she drowned. Gertrude says that Ophelia appeared “incapable of her own distress”.

Laertes is pleased that Hamlet has come back to Denmark, since it means that his revenge will not be delayed. Claudius agrees that Laertes deserves to be revenged upon Hamlet, and he is disposed to encourage Laertes to kill Hamlet, since Hamlet’s erratic behavior has made him a threat to Claudius’s reign.

18) Horatio warns Hamlet by saying, “You will lose this wager, my lord” in line 223 and also when he says “If your mind dislike anything, obey it” in line 231.