How to Read Hamlet: Themes, Structure and Questions to Ask

What Hamlet is, and why it is still read

William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet around 1599 to 1601, and it is the longest of his plays. It is a revenge tragedy, a popular form on the London stage, set in the Danish royal castle of Elsinore. Prince Hamlet, home from university at Wittenberg after his father's sudden death, finds his uncle Claudius on the throne and married to his mother, Gertrude. A ghost in his father's shape tells him Claudius poisoned him and demands revenge.

The story is older than Shakespeare: a version appears in the medieval Danish history of Saxo Grammaticus, and an earlier English Hamlet play, now lost, was staged in the 1590s. What Shakespeare's version is remembered for is the inner life, a hero who argues with himself in some of the most quoted speeches in English. That is why it is still read: it asks how anyone can act with certainty when the evidence is doubtful, grief is raw and someone may be listening behind the curtain.

How Hamlet is structured, act by act

Hamlet runs in five acts, cited by act, scene and line, so 3.1 means Act 3, scene 1. Act 1 sets up the obligation, the middle acts show Hamlet testing and holding back, and Act 5 brings everyone to one room for the duel. The hinge is the play-within-the-play in 3.2: before it, Hamlet is gathering proof; after it, he has his proof, and events, more than his own decisions, start to drive him.

The main themes of Hamlet

For each theme, the scenes named are where to look for quotations. A strong essay picks one theme and follows it through several acts rather than touching all five.

Key characters in Hamlet

Hamlet's family is mirrored by a second family, Polonius and his children, and by a son in Norway. Keep all three in view.

• Hamlet: prince, student, mourner and sharp-tongued wit, whose doubts slow the revenge he has sworn.
• Claudius: Hamlet's uncle, murderer and new king; a capable politician whose prayer scene shows guilt without repentance.
• Gertrude: Hamlet's mother, now Claudius's wife; how much she knows about the murder is left open.
• The Ghost: appears as Hamlet's dead father, and Hamlet must decide whether it is honest or a devil.
• Polonius: the king's counselor, a meddling father whose spying gets him killed.
• Ophelia: Polonius's daughter, ordered to reject Hamlet; her madness is shown onstage and her drowning reported.
• Laertes: Ophelia's brother, who returns to avenge Polonius at once and joins Claudius's plot.
• Horatio: the friend Hamlet trusts, asked at the end to tell his story.
• Fortinbras: the Norwegian prince whose father old Hamlet killed; he ends the play holding Denmark.

How to read Hamlet: an act-by-act plan

Hamlet is long, so plan it by act rather than in one sitting. The general method in how to read Shakespeare, scene by scene and aloud where you can, applies here; these steps add what is specific to this play.

1. 1Read a short summary of the whole play first; knowing the ending frees you to notice how Hamlet gets there.
2. 2Read Act 1 in one sitting and write down exactly what the Ghost tells Hamlet to do, and what it tells him to leave alone.
3. 3At each soliloquy, paraphrase it in two or three sentences and note what event prompted it.
4. 4Split Act 3 over two sittings; it holds the play scene, the prayer scene and the closet scene, which most essays draw on.
5. 5In Act 4, keep a side-by-side note of how Laertes and Hamlet each respond to a murdered father.
6. 6After Act 5, reread the first soliloquy in 1.2 beside Hamlet's words to Horatio before the duel, and describe how he has changed.
7. 7Watch a filmed production of one scene that confused you, and note what the actors decided that the text leaves open.

Questions to ask about Hamlet

Use these for seminar preparation or essay planning, and answer each with a specific scene. If you have read Macbeth, the Macbeth study guide makes a useful comparison: one hero acts too quickly, the other too slowly.

• Is the Ghost honest, and does the play ever settle the question?
• Why does Hamlet spare Claudius at prayer, and is his reason convincing?
• When, if ever, does Hamlet's performed madness become real?
• What does Gertrude know about her first husband's death?
• How much of Hamlet's cruelty to Ophelia is aimed at listeners he suspects are hidden?
• What do Laertes and Fortinbras reveal about Hamlet by contrast?
• Does killing Polonius make Hamlet more like Claudius?
• What changes in Hamlet after the sea voyage and the graveyard?
• Why does a tragedy give its gravediggers jokes?
• What does Fortinbras's arrival suggest about Denmark's future?

Choosing an edition of Hamlet: three texts, one play

Hamlet is the Shakespeare play where the edition matters most, because it survives in three early printed versions. The First Quarto of 1603 is much shorter, calls Polonius Corambis and places “To be or not to be” earlier. The Second Quarto of 1604 to 1605 is the longest. The First Folio of 1623 lacks some Second Quarto passages, including Hamlet's soliloquy after he sees Fortinbras's army in 4.4, and adds others.

Most student editions combine the Second Quarto and Folio and note where they differ, which is fine for a first read; the Arden Third Series prints the three texts separately, which suits close study. Use your class's edition, cite act, scene and line, and check the notes when a familiar line seems missing. In translation, a facing-page edition lets you check the wordplay.