Hamlet, Part 7: Plot and Character Answers

Which word best describes Laertes in Act IV of Hamlet?

In Act IV of Hamlet, why does Shakespeare include the plot event in which Horatio reads and reacts to Hamlet’s letter about an encounter with pirates?

Read the excerpt from Act IV of Hamlet.Claudius: Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door. What is the matter?Gentleman: Save yourself, my lord; The ocean, overpeering of his list, Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste Than young Laertes, in a riotous head, O'erbears your officers. The rabble call him lord; And, as the world were now but to begin, Antiquity forgot, custom not known, The ratifiers and props of every word, They cry, 'Choose we; Laertes shall be king!' Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds, 'Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!'

Read the excerpt from Act IV of Hamlet.Ophelia:Larded with 'sweet flower;Which bewept to the grave did goWith true-love showers.Claudius: How do you, pretty lady?Ophelia: Well, God 'ild you! They say the owl was a baker's daughter. Lord! we know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your table!

Read the excerpt from Act IV of Hamlet.Claudius: He made confession of you, And gave you such a masterly report For art and exercise in your defence, And for your rapier most especially, That he cried out, 'twould be a sight indeed If one could match you; the scrimers of their nation, He swore, had neither motion, guard, nor eye, If you oppos'd them. Sir, this report of his Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy That he could nothing do but wish and beg Your sudden coming o'er, to play with him. Now, out of this,—Laertes: What out of this, my lord?Claudius: Laertes, was your father dear to you? Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,

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Read the excerpts from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.Which statement best describes Laertes’s development between Act I and Act IV?

Hamlet stages a performance about a murder to discern Claudius’s guilt. This is part of Hamlet’s

Read the excerpt from Act IV of Hamlet.Gentleman: She speaks much of her father; says she hears There's tricks i' the world; and hems, and beats her heart; Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt, That carry but half sense: her speech is nothing . . .Horatio: 'Twere good she were spoken with, for she may strew Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.Gertrude: Let her come in. [Exit Gentleman.] To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is, Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss: So full of artless jealousy is guilt, It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

Francisco and Bernardo, two castle guards in Elsinore, Denmark, stand alert on the castle steps at night. This is part of the plot’s