Hamlet : Summary

Summary

The Mysterious Death of Old Hamlet: One of Shakespeare’s famous plays is Hamlet. The plot of the play Hamlet revolves around the death of the play’s dying character, Old Hamlet. The image of his son Hamlet’s quest for revenge is presented later. At the very beginning of the play, Marcellus and Bernardo, two guards of the Danish palace, see a ghost while guarding the main gate of the palace. The main character of our play is Hamlet, who is the only son of the dead King Hamlet. After the king’s death, the king’s wife, Prince Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, married Hamlet’s uncle. Then, Hamlet’s uncle Claudius declared himself King of Denmark. Hamlet’s uncle calls Hamlet to the kingdom to perform his father’s funeral, and Hamlet arrives to find that his father is dead and his mother is married to his uncle. He was saddened to see them. The next scene shows Hamlet proposing to Polonius’s daughter Ophelia, and Ophelia’s brother advises her to stay away from Hamlet.

Returning as the ghost of Old Hamlet: In the next incident, the story of the ghost returns again. Two palace guards saw the ghost, and a man named Horatio, who was Hamlet’s friend, knew about it. Horatio tells Hamlet about this incident, and Hamlet goes with him to meet the ghost at the palace gate. Hamlet sees the ghost and realizes that it is his father, Old Hamlet. Old Hamlet is a little surprised to see Hamlet and tells him that his death is not natural. He is murdered, and his killer is Old Hamlet’s brother Claudius. He gives Hamlet 2 duties, one of which is,

May he avenge his father’s death and

The other is that he should not cause any trouble to his mother.

Hamlet’s act of madness: When Hamlet learns of this incident, he is devastated and is the first to decide to commit suicide. Later, he realized that according to Christianity, suicide is a great sin. So he came out of this thought. He then plans with his friend that first, they have to be sure if his uncle killed his father or not! He will prove it through a play. After this incident, Hamlet’s behavior became like that of a madman. In fact, Hamlet himself behaved like a madman at times.

One day, he acted like a madman. He grabbed Ophelia’s hand. Ophelia then ran to her father and said, “She did not like Hamlet’s behavior today. Hamlet did not have his hat on his head and even behaved like a mad madman”. Ophelia’s father then thought to himself that perhaps Hamlet had gone mad with grief because his daughter had rejected Hamlet’s proposal. He planned to present this matter in the royal court. In the meantime, the king organized a play in the royal court. On the other hand, Hamlet plans to prove through this play that his uncle Claudius is the murderer of his father. That’s why he planned to play two. The first is the murder of Gonzalo, and the other is The Mousetrap.

Hamlet accidentally kills Polonius: One day, Hamlet is discussing this matter in his mother’s room, and he suddenly realizes someone is listening to their discussion behind the curtain. He then took out his sword, ran it through the curtain, and saw that Ophelia’s father, Polonius, was killed by the sword. After the death of Ophelia’s father, the royal court was thrown into chaos, and Ophelia and her brother became almost insane. In the end, Ophelia herself fell to her death, and her brother was blessed and started a riot in the royal court to avenge his father’s murder.

Banishing Hamlet and returning to Denmark: Claudius then convinces Laertes that Hamlet is the murderer of his father and his sister. He then plans to send Hamlet into exile in England and appoints two spies to accompany him. On his way to England, Hamlet makes friends with the two secret agents and suddenly finds a letter from their pockets, which is written to the King of England telling him to kill Hamlet as soon as he arrives in England. Hamlet then took the letter to his own room and immediately wrote another letter. Where it is said that the King of England should kill the two spies as soon as Hamlet arrives in England. But things took a different turn when their ship was attacked by pirates. Hamlet willingly goes to the pirate ship. Impressed by Hamlet’s good behavior, the pirates release him and he returns to Denmark again.

A plan to kill Hamlet by Claudius: When Claudius finds that he has returned to Denmark after being sent into exile, he makes another plan to kill Hamlet. The king arranges a wrestling match where Hamlet will fight his rival Laertes. Here, the king conspires to poison one of the two swords, with which Laertes will fight Hamlet. It is also planned that if Laertes does not win the battle, he will offer wine to Hamlet with poison mixed in it.

Hamlet’s revenge and his death: After the battle begins, Learrtes loses the first round, and Claudius offers Hamlet a glass of wine. But Hamlet refuses the wine, relaxes, and starts fighting again. When Laertes’ sword struck Hamlet’s body, he realized that Laertes’ sword was laced with poison. So he offered to exchange the sword while the battle was going on, and accidentally, the poisoned sword ended up in Hamlet’s hands. Then Laertes was also struck by that sword. Suddenly Hamlet’s mother Gertrude drinks from the poisoned cup and begins to suffer death agony.

At that time she told her son Hamlet that his uncle was the mastermind of these conspiracies. Saying this, his mother fell to her death and Hamlet, enraged, attacked his uncle with a poisoned sword. In this situation, Hamlet, his mother, his uncle, and his rival, Laertes, die. Only Horatio and another character named Fortinbras survived. Eventually, Fortinbras becomes king of Denmark and orders that Hamlet be cremated with due respect.