Hamlet Essay Exam

Instructions: Select ONE of the essay prompts below.  On separate lined-paper, respond to the prompt with an in-depth essay (more than just a five paragraph essay).  Support your ideas with evidence and quotations from the text (Remember to take your evidence from the play script and not from the movie).

Please use the four-part quote analysis to present your evidence:

1.       Claim (What is the main idea you are trying to communicate with the paragraph?)

2.       Context for the quotation (Who said it? To whom? At what point in the play?)

3.       Quotation (Don’t use long quotations.  Instead, select the most important part of the quotation. Make sure to introduce the quotation with an appropriate dialogue tag such as Hamlet says, “To be…”.)

4.       Analysis of the quotation (Use 4-6 sentences to point out important words or phrases and to show how the quotation proves the claim.)

The test will be given upon completion of the play in class. You will have a two-hour class block to write your essay. This is an open-book, open-note test.  You would be wise to prepare an outline beforehand.

Essay Prompts:

Note that each prompt has a main question followed by sub-questions to help you explore the topic. You are not required to respond to all the sub-questions; moreover, you are not limited to just these sub-questions.

A.      What is the meaning of Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy?

a.       Which does Hamlet choose?  At what point in the play?

b.      Which characters choose to be?

c.       Which choose not to be?

d.      How does the play show the consequences of these choices?

e.      How is the to be question related to the corruption motif throughout the play?

f.        How is the to be question related to the acting motif?

g.       How is the to be question related to madness in the play?

 

B.      Explore the acting motif in the play.

a.       How does Hamlet’s acting “hold a mirror up to nature”?

b.      Which characters are acting?

c.       How does their acting reveal and/or conceal the truth?

d.      What is the significance of the play-within-the-play?

e.      How do the final scenes of the play, including the funeral services for Hamlet and Horatio’s implied storytelling, relate to the acting motif?

 

C.      What is the play saying about madness?

a.       What is the significance of Polonius’s seemingly absurd comments to the King about Hamlet’s madness? Why did Shakespeare use the word mad instead of insane?

b.      Compare and contrast Hamlet and Ophelia’s madness.

c.       Is anyone else mad in the play?

d.      What is the relationship between madness and truth in the play?

e.      What is the relationship between madness and corruption?

 

D.      Explore the idea that ultimately, Hamlet is a meditation on death.

a.       What does the play say about death?

b.      What does it say about life and human nature?

c.       What do Hamlet’s monologues say about the topic? Consider his to be or not to be speech. Also consider his words to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern about his depression.

d.      What is the significance of Hamlet’s words to Claudius after having killed Polonius?

e.      What is the significance of the gravedigger scene?

f.        What is the significance of Ophelia’s burial scene?

g.       How is the play related to Catholic and Protestant beliefs about death and salvation?

h.      Interpret Hamlet’s final words, “The rest is silence.”

 

E.       Explore the character of Hamlet.

a.       Why would many literary critics consider him the most brilliant mind in all of literature?

b.      Is he flawed?  Is he cruel? Is he likable or pitiable?

c.       Is he a hero?

d.      Why does he appreciate Horatio?

e.      How does he compare with the other sons in the play, Laertes and Fortinbras?

f.        Why does he favor the election of Fortinbras to be the next king of Denmark?

 

F.       What does Hamlet say about love?

a.       What is the relationship between love and obedience?

b.      Did Hamlet love Ophelia?

c.       Did Gertrude love Claudius?

d.      Did Hamlet Sr. love Hamlet Jr.?

e.      Which characters truly loved each other?

f.        Why did Hamlet love Horatio?

g.       What is the significance of the harlotry motif?

h.      Does the play offer any hope for love?