Act One
1. Identify Bernardo, Francisco, Marcellus, Horatio, and King Hamlet.
Bernardo, Francisco and Marcellus are guard soldiers at Elsinore.
Horatio is Hamlet's friend. King Hamlet is Hamlet's father who was murdered prior to the beginning of the play.
2. What had Bernardo seen at a prior watch?
Bernardo had seen King Hamlet's ghost.
3. Why does Marcellus think Horatio should speak to the ghost?
Horatio was a scholar who should know the proper way to address a ghost.
4. What does young Fortinbras want to do?
Young Fortinbras wants to regain the lands his father had lost.
5. Where does Claudius send Cornelius and Voltimand?
He sends them to the King of Norway with letters asking the King to try to keep young
Fortinbras from going to battle.
6. What does the King tell Hamlet?
He tells Hamlet that Hamlet should not grieve so deeply for his father's death; it is time to think of other things. He says he wants Hamlet to think of him as his father and to remain at cheerful Elsinore for a while longer.
7. Hamlet is upset for two reasons. What are they?
His father has died, and his uncle has married his mother less than two months after his
father's death. It was not a respectable period of time to wait, besides which the marriage in Hamlet's time was considered incestuous.
8. What news does Horatio bring Hamlet?
Horatio tells Hamlet of King Hamlet's ghost.
9. What does Hamlet decide to do after he hears Horatio's news?
He decides to go on watch with the guards at midnight in hopes of seeing the ghost
himself.
10. What is Polonius' advice to Laertes?
Polonius tells Laertes to not always voice his thoughts, to be familiar but not vulgar, to
hold on to his closest friends, to beware of getting into quarrels, to listen to everyone but not to always give advice, to listen to others' opinions without always judging them, to buy good clothes, to not be a borrower or lender, and above all else, to his own self be true.
11. At the end of Scene III, Ophelia agrees to "obey." What will she do?
She agrees to obey Polonius' wish that she would stay away from Hamlet and reject his
affections.
12. What did the ghost tell Hamlet?
The ghost told Hamlet that King Hamlet was murdered by Claudius, and it asked Hamlet to avenge the murder.
13. Hamlet swears Horatio to two things. What are they?
He swears him to secrecy about the events of this evening (seeing the ghost) and to go
along with him should he pretend to be crazy.
14. When the play begins, a major event, the death of King Hamlet, has already occurred. How does this affect the reader’s understanding of the play?
This is also referred to as antecedent action in a plot.