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Lesson 9

We will analyze selected lines from Act 3, Scene 3 through a political lens. We will also read the beginning of Act 3, Scene 4.

Lesson Goals

  • Can I analyze the impact of word choice on the meaning and tone of Claudius’s soliloquy in Act 3, Scene 3?

  • Can I analyze Claudius’s soliloquy through a political lens?

Texts

Core

  • Tradebook
    • Hamlet, William Shakespeare, Simon and Schuster, 2003
  • Multimedia
    • Hamlet: The Fully Dramatized Audio Edition, William Shakespeare, Folger Shakespeare Library, Simon and Schuster, 2014

Materials

Tools

Question Sets

Editable Google Docs

Activity 1: Discuss

As a class, we will review our answers to the guiding homework questions for Act 3, Scene 3.

As a class, discuss your responses to the homework guiding questions about Act 3, Scene 3:

  1. What task does Claudius give Rosencrantz and Guildenstern?

  2. What is Polonius’s plan?

  3. What does Claudius confess in his soliloquy?

  4. Why does Hamlet refrain from killing Claudius in this scene? What evidence from the text supports this interpretation?

Revise your annotations and notes in your Learning Log based on the group discussion.

Activity 2: Read – Discuss

We will reread key lines from Act 3, Scene 3 and analyze them through a political lens.

Reread Claudius’s Lines 40-50.

O, my offense is rank it smells to heaven;

It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t,

A brother’s murder. Pray can I not,

Though inclination be as sharp as will:

My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;

And, like a man to double business bound,

I stand in pause where I shall first begin,

And both neglect. What if this cursed hand

Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood,

Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens

To wash it white as snow?

With a partner, discuss the following questions:

  1. What allusion is in Lines 41-42? What impact does it have on the meaning of the soliloquy?

  2. What imagery does Cladius use to describe his crime? What does his use of imagery reveal about his feelings regarding his crime?

Activity 3: Read

We will reread selected lines from claudius’s soliloquy and analyze them through a political lens.

Reread the following lines from Claudius’s soliloquy:

But, O, what form of prayer

Can serve my turn? 'Forgive me my foul murder'?

That cannot be; since I am still possess'd

Of those effects for which I did the murder,

My crown, mine own ambition and my queen.

May one be pardon'd and retain the offense?

In the corrupted currents of this world

Offense's gilded hand may shove by justice,

And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself

Buys out the law: but 'tis not so above;

There is no shuffling, there the action lies

In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd,

Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,

To give in evidence. What then? what rests?

Try what repentance can: what can it not?

Yet what can it when one can not repent? (3.3.55-70)

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:

Words without thoughts never to heaven go. (3.3.102-103)

With a partner, discuss the following questions:

  1. How do politics and power motivate Claudius in this play? What evidence from the text supports this interpretation?

  2. How does Claudius describe the politics of the world compared to the politics of heaven? What lines support this interpretation?

  3. The soliloquy reveals to the audience that Claudius did, in fact, murder his brother. What, however, is Claudius acknowledging to himself in this scene? What evidence from the text supports this interpretation?

Capture any new insights on the politics of Hamlet on your Political Lens Note-Taking Tool.

Activity 4: Read – Discuss

We will read lines 1–117 from Act 3, Scene 4.

Read and annotate Lines 1-117 from Act 3, Scene 4. As you read, pay attention to Hamlet’s mistake and how he treats his mother.

Discuss the following questions as a class and reference evidence from the text:

  1. What is Hamlet’s mistake in this scene? How serious is it? What might be the consequences of this mistake?

  2. How does Hamlet treat his mother? What evidence from the text supports this interpretation?

  3. How does Gertrude react to Hamlet’s words? What evidence from the text supports this interpretation?

Activity 5: Read

For homework, we will read the remaining lines in Act 3, Scene 4.

For homework, read the remaining lines (118-240) of Act 3, Scene 4.

In your Learning Log, respond to the following questions:

  1. Why does Hamlet think the Ghost appears? Why does the Ghost really appear? What evidence from the text supports this interpretation?

  2. What does the Ghost’s presence confirm for Gertrude? What evidence from the text supports this interpretation?

  3. What does Hamlet plead for his mother not to do? What is her response?

  4. How does Hamlet feel about his killing of Polonius? What evidence from the text supports this interpretation?

As you read for homework, write down new or interesting words you encounter in your Vocabulary Journal. If necessary, revisit the Vocabulary in Context Tool to assist you with words or phrases you struggle with.