Hamlet Book Notes Summary

Act 1, Scene 2

Suicide 1: Wallowing in gloom, Hamlet wishes that his living flesh would melt into nothingness. Life is flat and weary for the melancholy Prince. If God had not ruled suicide a mortal sin, Hamlet would readily escape the uselessness of the world through self-slaughter.

Act 1, Scene 5

Suicide 2: Charged with avenging his father's murder, Hamlet curses his luck and laments that he was ever born. Earlier, the suicidal prince wished for death. Now he wishes he had never seen life.

Act 2, Scene 2

Suicide 3: Hamlet's melancholy deepens and his suicidal self-hatred grows. The withdrawn Prince no longer feels a desire to be amongst men or women. All is worthless, dead dust to him. Hamlet condemns himself for being a rogue and a pigeon-livered coward. He hates his inactivity and his life.

Act 3, Scene 3

Suicide 4: Hamlet wonders whether it is better to live with misery or die with uncertainty. Life is nothing but suffering and enduring fortune's unfair blows. Suicide is the ultimate defense against life's troubles. Suicide offers peaceful sleep; but what dreams may interrupt that sleep? Hamlet is afraid of the uncertain afterlife and those unknown nightmares that may be in store. Death offers peace, but the dreaded unknown makes men too cowardly to commit suicide.

Act 4, Scene 7

Suicide 5: Ophelia has drowned in a suspected suicide. Driven mad by Polonius' murder and Hamlet's betrayal, Ophelia fell from a willow tree into the river. Without struggle, the singing maiden surrendered to the water and drowned.

Act 5, Scene 1

Suicide 6: Because suicide is a mortal sin, the gravediggers wonder whether Ophelia will receive a Christian burial. Ophelia's funeral procession is short and modest. The harsh priest says that her death was suspicious. Without her royal ties, Ophelia would have been buried in unsanctified ground.

Act 5, Scene 2

Suicide 7: The culminating suicide is the death of the entire royal clan by its own familial corruption. During the royal massacre, Laertes is slashed with his own poisoned sword. Claudius is killed by his own treacherous plan. Gertrude willfully seizes the chalice that poisons her, and Hamlet dies because his delayed quest for vengeance has led to this final massacre. Denmark has crumbled because the royal family has killed itself through betrayal and vice.