What happens in act 2 scene of Hamlet?
Act 2 scene 2
Polonius suggests the king and queen spy on Hamlet as he talks to him. Hamlet speaks in riddles, suggesting that he is mad, though his speech also contains hidden meanings which Polonius picks up on. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern enter and Hamlet reveals that he knows they were sent to spy on him.
What is act 2 scene 2 about in Hamlet?
King Claudius has summoned Hamlet’s two school chums to Elsinore to have them spy on the Prince and report back to Claudius, recounting Hamlet’s every move. The Queen promises them handsome compensation for their spying and assures them that Hamlet’s own good requires the service.
What is the most important scene in Act 2 of Hamlet?
Act 2 Scene 2 – Claudius becomes suspicious
Polonius, chief adviser to the new king, tells Claudius that Hamlet’s madness is due to unrequited love for Ophelia, Polonius’s daughter, but Claudius is not convinced and plots with Polonius to spy on Hamlet.
What is the theme of Act 2 in Hamlet?
Hamlet: Act II
A major theme that develops in act II, is the theme of deception. In act II, Hamlet feels as if his dad was murdered for a wrong reason; his uncle killed Hamlet’s father for fortune.
How does Hamlet feel at the end of Act 2?
Hamlet feels locked up and spied on even by his own friends. He has to hide his thoughts and feelings by acting out his madness. In the end of Act II, Hamlet reveals his plan for testing Claudius’s guilt.
What is Hamlet’s plan at the end of Act 2?
He resolves to devise a trap for Claudius, forcing the king to watch a play whose plot closely resembles the murder of Hamlet’s father; if the king is guilty, he thinks, he will surely show some visible sign of guilt when he sees his sin reenacted on stage.
What is Hamlet’s mental state in Act 2 Scene 2?
Watching the lead actor deliver a compelling monologue, Hamlet becomes sad that he, unlike the talented actor, can’t seem to summon any courage or passion when it comes to avenging his father’s death. He then hatches a plan: he’ll have the actors stage a play with a plot similar to the king’s murder.
What a piece of work is man no fear?
“What a piece of work is man!” is a phrase within a monologue by Prince Hamlet in William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. Hamlet is reflecting, at first admiringly, and then despairingly, on the human condition.
What happened in Act 2 Scene 1 of Hamlet?
In Act II, Scene 1, the apparently caring, nurturing father Polonius hires the shady Reynaldo (The Fox) to spy on Laertes. Polonius tells Reynaldo that he suspects the worst of Laertes and wants reports of all his dirtiest deeds gleaned from the most deceptive spying.
What are major events of Act 2 Hamlet?
Terms in this set (12)
- Polonius asks Reynaldo to spy on Laertes.
- Ophelia tells Polonius of Hamlet’s strange coming on to her.
- Polonius believes it is because Hamlet loves Ophelia.
- Claudius sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on Hamlet.
- Voltemand and Cornelius return.
- Voltemnd tells Claudius of Fortinbras’s plan.
What does Hamlet’s soliloquy Act 2 Scene 2 reveal about his thinking?
Scene II. This soliloquy illustrates Hamlet’s continued inability to do anything of consequence. He lacks the knowledge of how to remedy the pain caused by his present circumstances, so he wonders how an actor would portray him, saying, ‘[he would] drown the stage with tears’.
What does Hamlet’s soliloquy in act 2 mean?
This soliloquy illustrates Hamlet’s continued inability to do anything of consequence. He lacks the knowledge of how to remedy the pain caused by his present circumstances, so he wonders how an actor would portray him, saying, ‘[he would] drown the stage with tears’.
Why does Hamlet berate himself at the end of act II?
Left alone, Hamlet berates himself for not yet having avenged his father’s murder, in one of the most famous soliloquies… ever. He basically asks how the actor can weep for a fictional character, while he himself does nothing about his own father’s very real death.
Why is Hamlet upset with himself Act 2?
Why is Hamlet upset with himself after hearing the player’s dramatic speech? Hamlet is upset that the player can make himself so passionate about a mere fictional story, while Hamlet seemingly can’t muster the same passion for his real-life revenge.
What does Hamlet’s soliloquy in Act 2 reveal about him?
How does Ophelia feel about Hamlet in Act 2?
SARAH: Ophelia portrays Hamlet as the conventional distraught lover who’s gone mad from love: his jacket’s undone, he’s hatless, his stockings are unfastened and down around his ankles, and his face is as pale as his white shirt.
What does Hamlet’s 2nd soliloquy mean?
Hamlet is stunned by the revelation and echoes of the Ghost’s words asking him to remember it. This soliloquy reveals an important secret to Hamlet and carries his rage and grief. He is shocked, stunned, and in great grief upon realizing that his father was rather murdered by Hamlet’s uncle.
What does Hamlet’s soliloquy in Act 2 mean?
What does Hamlet reveal in his soliloquy found at the end of Act 2?
In the end of Act II, Hamlet reveals his plan for testing Claudius’s guilt. Why would Shakespeare make him use a thearitical performace for this purpose? Shakespeare believes that an acting scene may create emotion to the audience, therefore Claudius may react in a way that proves it was him.
Who is spying on who in Hamlet Act 2?
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Claudius and Gertrude set Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two boyhood friends of Hamlet, to spy on him.
How does Hamlet feel about himself in Act 2?
In Act II Hamlet is angry with himself because he doesn’t understand how an actor can get so emotional over a speech that he is reading, while Hamlet, who is actually in the real situation, is passive in his emotions, “Is it not monstrous that this player here, but in a fiction, in a dream of passion, could force his …
What is the tone of Hamlet’s soliloquy in Act 2 scene 2?
The speaker’s tone fluctuates between lacking self confidence and hating himself for being weak, but then he thinks of an idea and he becomes more uplifted because he was able to think of something clever to avenge his father’s death.
Is Ophelia pregnant in Hamlet?
In this respect, Hamlet represents a singularity in the canon: there we experience the Eliza- bethan pregnant imagination ”making”—so to say—Ophelia physically pregnant, with the result that her personal tragedy is more pathetic than would otherwise be the case.
Did Hamlet and Ophelia sleep together?
It would have been risky for Shakespeare directly to portray pre-marital sex between aristocratic characters, but Hamlet gives us reasons to suspect that at some point before the beginning of the play, Hamlet and Ophelia have had sex.