Act 1: scenes 2 - 5

After the discovery of the ghost in scene 1, we finally meet the major players in the play. In scene 2 we are introduced to the king (claudius), the queen (gertrude), polonius, laertes, and hamlet. the scene opens with laertes asking leave to return to france, and then shows the first meeting of hamlet and claudius as the new king. hamlet is still in mourning over the the death of his father, even though the king and queen try to change his feelings. The scene ends with horatio telling hmalet about the ghost that resembles the dead king hamlet. hamlet decides to see this ghost, and they leave.

scene 3: we meet the fair ophelia! laertes, who decided to leave for france, is having a little chat with his sister, ophelia, over hamlet. he tells her to be careful around hamlet because he is a prince, and his promises of love may amount to nothing. he warns her to stay a maiden. as he ends his speech, polonius shows up, and gives his own advice to laertes. "to thine own self be true" is what we can take from all this advice. then laertes leaves, and polonius tells ophelia that she is not to be alone with hamlet anymore and not to show him too much interest, because it would not be proper for a woman of her stature to date the prince. she answers: "i shall obey, my lord."

scene 4: Hamlet, horatio, and marcellus are up late looking for the ghost. the ghost appears, and becons to hamlet, who decided to go speak to it. after hamlet speaks, marcellus says something pretty profound for being a dimwit soldier, "something is rotten in the state of Denmark."

scene 5: hamlet speaks to the ghost. the ghost tells him that he is the ghost of king hamlet, hamlet's dead father. he says that he was murdered by claudius, and asks hamlet to revenge him. the ghost then has a long speech about his murder, how hamlet shouldn't harm his mother, and how hamlet shouldn't get too obsessed over this revenge business. the ghost leaves, "Adieu, adieu, adieu! Remember me." Hamlet then makes marcellus and horatio swear not to tell anyone about this. he then tells horation that he may "put an antic disposition on" but that he isn't really crazy.

Reflection:
The opening act establishes a few major points: claudius killed the king, the queen may have been unfaithful to king hamlet before his death, hamlet will act crazy, ophelia is not to see hamlet, and that hamlet intends to revenge his father's "foul and most unnatural murder." already, we can see that hamlet is a very clever character. he seems to philosophise quite a bit. I look forward to see how hamlet will kill his uncle, or if he'll kill him at all.