HONORS PS1500 - Physics in the Plays of Tom Stoppard

Hamlet Act 5 --- Questions for Discussion

• Scene 1 --- Summary

Did Ophelia kill herself, or did "the water come to her, and drown her" (see lines 15, 16)?

• Scene 2 --- Summary

Did Gertrude kill herself by knowingly drinking from the poisoned cup?

Did Rosencrantz and Guildenstern deserve their fate?

• The Hamlet Problem: Why does Hamlet delay taking his revenge? Why doesn’t he kill Claudius immediately? And why does Hamlet constantly feel guilty about not being able to go through with it?
  
  

• In Act 5, Scene 2, lines 10 and 11, Hamlet declares that "There's a divinity that shapes our ends / Rough-hew them how we will." Later in the same scene, lines 192 to 195, Hamlet says, "There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ‘tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come --- the readiness is all."  Is everything that will happen to you already determined, or can you take action to control your own destiny?
   

• In Act 1, Scene 5, lines 166 and 167, Hamlet says that "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Are there more things than are dreamt of today? Will there always be? What sort of person might these lines apply to today?
   

• In Act 5, Scene 1, line 55, Horatio observes that the gravedigger can joke about his grisly task because "Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness." How does the idea that custom deadens the senses permeate the play? To what extent is this applicable to everyday life today?

1. Act 5, Scene 2 , lines 4 to 62 (Two parts: Hamlet and Horatio)

Starts with Hamlet: Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting / that would not let me sleep.

Ends with Horatio: Why, what a king is this!

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Last modified:  Thursday, January 25, 2007 11:32 AM