Summary and Analysis of Act 5
Act Five, Scene OneTwo gravediggers (clowns) are digging out Ophelia's grave. They discuss the fact that Ophelia drowned herself, and therefore should not receive a Christian burial under Christian law. However, the one gravedigger points out that the coroner has declared it a natural death rather than a suicide, and therefore they must dig the grave for her. Hamlet overhears the first gravedigger singing to himself and remarks on the fact that the man is so cheerful at his occupation. Horatio tells him that it must come from doing the job for such a long time. Hamlet approaches the man and asks him whose grave it is. The gravedigger, taking every word literally, tells him, "Mine, sir" (5.1.109). Hamlet finally gives up asking and instead inquires for news about Prince Hamlet while pretending to be someone else. The gravedigger tells him that Hamlet was sent to England because he was mad. He then informs Hamlet that a body will last in the grave for eight or nine years at the most. He picks up a skull and shows it to Hamlet, telling him it has been in the earth for twenty-three years. Hamlet asks whose skull it is, and is shocked to learn that it is the skull of Yorick, a jester who entertained him as a youth. He comments that even parts of Alexander the Great's body might now be used as a flask stopper and they would never know it. Hamlet and Horatio run and hide when they hear Claudius, Gertrude, Laertes, and other attendants arriving. Hamlet wonders whose corpse they are carrying with them to the grave. He overhears Laertes arguing with the priest about the last rites. Due to the strange manner of Ophelia's death, the priest will only allow the body to be buried in holy ground, but he refuses to read her the prayers. Hamlet soon realizes that the body is that of Ophelia. Laertes is so overcome with emotion once the coffin has been placed into the grave that he leaps in after it. Hamlet, seeing this, reveals himself and jumps into the grave as well. Laertes immediately grabs Hamlet by the throat and starts to choke him. Claudius order the other men present to pull them apart and Hamlet shouts that he loved Ophelia more than forty thousand of her brothers combined. He tells Laertes that, "I loved you ever. But it is no matter. / Let Hercules himself do what he may, / The cat will mew, and dog will have his day" (5.1.275-278). Hamlet leaves and Horatio follows him. Act Five, Scene TwoHamlet tells Horatio what really happened on the way to England. He rose on night and stole the letters that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were taking to the King of England. The letters told the king to kill Hamlet and listed several reasons why this would benefit both nations. Hamlet immediately wrote out several new letters and sealed them using his signet. The new letters ordered that the two men accompanying him should be put to death. Hamlet is not at all upset about ordering his two "friends" to die in England since, "they did make love to this employment" (5.2.58). Horatio warns Hamlet that Claudius will soon discover what has happened when news arrives from England. A man named Osric arrives and tells Hamlet that he has news from the king for him. Hamlet plays a game with the man, telling him to alternately put on and take off his hat. Osric finally gets frustrated with the game and informs Hamlet that Laertes, whom he describes in glowing terms, has placed a wager with Claudius. Claudius has bet Laertes that he cannot beat Hamlet by at least three hits in a fencing match with twelve passes. Hamlet agrees to the match and orders Osric to have them bring out the foils. A lord soon enters and tells Hamlet that everything is prepared and that they are waiting for Hamlet to come. He further tells Hamlet that Gertrude wishes that he would treat Laertes with respect and courtesy, to which Hamlet agrees. Horatio tells Hamlet that, "You will lose this wager, my lord" (5.2.147), but Hamlet tells him that he has been in continual practice since Laertes left for France. Horatio again tries to dissuade him from fencing with Laertes, and again Hamlet tells him that he will go and fight. Claudius and the rest of the court arrive and Claudius orders Hamlet to greet Laertes. Hamlet offers Laertes an apology for killing Polonius and blames the act on his madness. Laertes stiffly asserts that his honor is still at stake and that he must therefore have his revenge. They then call for the foils and prepare for the match. Claudius orders his attendants to bring him a cask of wine. He then announces that if Hamlet is able to score a hit in the first, second or third exchange then he will drink some wine and drop a pearl of exceptional value into the cup for Hamlet. Claudius then drinks to Hamlet as a salute for good luck and orders them to begin. Hamlet and Laertes fight until Hamlet shouts, "One" (5.2.220). Laertes disputes the hit and Osric decides in favor of Hamlet. Claudius halts the match and drops a pearl into his wine cup. He then offers the cup to Hamlet, who refuses to take it and tells him that he would rather continue the match. They fight and Hamlet again claims a hit that Laertes grants him. Gertrude takes the cup with the pearl in it and offers to drink for Hamlet. Claudius begs her not to, but she ignores him and drinks anyway, thereby ingesting the poison that Claudius had planned to give to Hamlet. Laertes meanwhile has poisoned his rapier's tip and in the next scuffle he manages to wound Hamlet. They continue fighting and Hamlet accidentally exchanges rapiers with Laertes after which he wounds him as well. Both men stop fighting when they realize that Gertrude has fallen onto the ground. She tells Hamlet, "The drink, the drink - I am poisoned" (5.2.253) before she dies. Laertes also falls to the ground from the poison he received when Hamlet wounded him. He tells Hamlet that both of them are poisoned to death and blames the king for everything. Hamlet, realizing that the point of the rapier is envenomed, slashes at Claudius and wounds him with it. The courtiers cry out, "Treason, treason!" (5.2.265), but they cannot stop Hamlet who has also grabbed the poisoned wine and is making Claudius drink it. Claudius quickly dies from the poison. Laertes, still barely alive, tells Hamlet that he forgives him for Polonius' death before he too dies. Hamlet orders Horatio to stay alive and report everything he knows to the public. Horatio instead has grabbed the cup and is preparing to commit suicide, but at Hamlet's plea he relinquishes the poison. Osric enters the room and tells them that Fortinbras has arrived with his army. Hamlet gives Fortinbras his vote to become the next King of Denmark before he dies. Fortinbras and the English ambassadors arrive together. Fortinbras looks over the scene of carnage and compares it too a massacre. The Englishmen inform Horatio that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have been put to death. Horatio takes charge and tells Fortinbras and the ambassadors to put the bodies on a stage in view of the public so that he may tell the full story of what has happened. Fortinbras agrees with this and orders his men to obey Horatio. He compares the scene to a battlefield and ends the play by ordering the soldiers to shoot their guns in honor of Hamlet's death. AnalysisThis act marks a move to action, evidenced by the lack of soliloquies and the decisive murder of all four main characters. Hamlet's language likewise undergoes a shift to active verbs only. For example, when Hamlet searches for the letters from Claudius to the King of England, he says, "In the dark, / Groped I to find out them, had my desire, / Fingered their packet, and in fine withdrew / To mine own room again, making so bold, / My fears forgetting manners, to unseal / Their grand commission" (5.2.14-19). Thus Hamlet has now reached the same level as Fortinbras in that he is able to attack Claudius or alternately defend himself from Laertes. The gravediggers, or clowns, are the only characters who finally disabuse language of its political double meaning. The First Clown in particular takes every word literally, forcing Hamlet to say exactly what he means. He further coherently evaluates the use of the word "act", saying, "if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act; and an act hath three branches: it is to act, to do, and to perform" (5.1.10-11). This raises the question of why Hamlet fails to act before this scene. After all, he has acted, he knows what he needs to do, but he is unable to perform the final action needed to kill Claudius. This scene also marks a return to material death in contrast with the ghost. Hamlet confronts death directly rather than metaphysically when he handles Yorick's skull and holds it in his hand. For the first time, the skull is material, it is not a ghost, and it reveals the true person underneath without any makeup or lies. Thus, just as the gravedigger strips language to its essential meaning and speaks the truth without realizing it, Hamlet is able to strip the murder of his father to its brutal meaning. Hamlet finally learns to act at this point, and he shows his change by assuming his father's name for the first time, using a description that denotes the King of Denmark, "This is I, Hamlet the Dane" (5.1.241-242). However, even though Hamlet assumes the title of the King of Denmark later, he actually starts to act like the king on his voyage to England. He uses his signet ring to mark the letters that he falsifies when he has Rosencrantz and Guildenstern put to death. "I had my father's signet in my purse, / Which was the model of the Danish seal; / Folded the writ up in the form of th'other, / Subscribed it, gave't th'impression, placed it safely" (5.2.50-53). Thus Hamlet is growing more powerful and more kinglike even before he sees the skulls. The choice of weapons again marks the distinct break from the past that Claudius represents when contrasted with Old Hamlet. Hamlet and Laertes use rapiers in a fencing match. These are new weapons for revenge, not the old armor of Old Hamlet. They also are weapons of sport, not war, showing how politics has become a game rather than a bloodbath. It is interesting to note the parallel between this murder scene and the final scene of Romeo and Juliet, which also ends with a dagger and a poisoned cup. There is strong foreshadowing during the burial of Ophelia. Laertes leaps into her grave, thereby sealing his own death. Hamlet follows, also foreshadowing his death following that of Laertes. Only in the final scene does Hamlet speaks to directly to us, not just himself or Horatio. "You that look pale and tremble at this chance, / That are but mutes or audience to this act...Report me and my cause aright / To the unsatisfied" (5.2.276-277,281-282). Thus he asks the audience to make sure his story is told correctly. The reason is because only we can testify properly, since only we have heard the soliloquies. The injunction to tell the story is how humans make tragedy bearable, and it also serves to bring the play full circle, from the tragedy of Old Hamlet ordering Hamlet to "remember me" to the new Hamlet asking Horatio "To tell my story" (5.2.291). This is an order to replay the play. Fortinbras recognizes Hamlet as the hero in the end, "Let four captains / Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage, / For he was likely, had he been put on, / To have proved most royally" (5.2.340-342). Indeed, Hamlet does all the criteria of a tragic hero by the time Fortinbras arrives. In the final scene he is a man of action who is killed by circumstances rather than any direct fault of his own. The debate over whether Hamlet is a hero depends heavily on how much weight is placed on the final act versus the play as a whole. It is difficult to call Hamlet a hero based on his actions during the beginning and middle of the play, where his madness seems to be a form of escape from action rather than a way to defeat Claudius.
ClassicNote on Hamlet
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