“It is the night following Horatio’s first encounter with the ghost and it finds him, the guards and Hamlet on the platform waiting for the ghost. There is a celebration going on in the castle and Hamlet explains to Horatio that it is customary for the king to hold a celebration where cannons are shot off in honour of the King’s health. This celebration is something Hamlet does not agree with; it is too excessive and other countries look upon the Danes as foolish because of it.
The ghost appears and Hamlet, realizing that the ghost does look like his dead father, approaches it and asks that it speak to him. At this point, Hamlet doesn’t know whether or not the ghost is there for good or evil purposes. The ghost beckons Hamlet. When Hamlet considers leaving with the ghost, Horatio and Marcellus try to dissuade him. They are concerned for his safety. If the ghost is there for evil purposes, it might lead Hamlet to his death. Hamlet forces his way past them and follows the ghost. The scene ends with Horatio and Marcellus following Hamlet to try and protect him.”
After reading the scene a couple of times and watching the scene played out I feel relatively the same understanding as the first time I looked over the scene. When Hamlet is first approached by the ghost he quickly realizes the ghosts resemblance to his dead father (the former King). To my surprise that Horatio and Marcellus don’t recognize the looks of the ghost to resemble Hamlets dead father either, they don’t trust the ghosts as Hamlet does due to Hamlets new found knowledge from the ghost. I feel as though I got a better understanding of the scene from reading it over a few times than what I say acted out. The stage during the play however, meaning the lighting and the background was a spectacular direct correlation with what you would expect a scene like this one to entail. What I Would imagine to see after a reading was extremely accurate. I didn’t think the characters were really brought to life, this could just be my take on plays in general but it was hard for me to distinguish which character belonged to which actor without rewinding and stopping to match things said with readings I had pulled up alongside. My interpretation of Hamlet remained the same after viewing the play. From the moment I picked this scene and did my readings I found Hamlet to be a courageous and intelligent man. Anyone to step up against the amount of people he does in efforts to avenge his fathers murder is mighty courageous by me.
I chose this scene because of the ghost, or visit from Hamlets dead father. As we all know a visit from a speaking ghost surely isn’t possible nowadays and it definitely was not in Hamlets era. I wanted to see how the characters would respond to this visit and just how natural them speaking with a ghost would play out. It doesn’t make much sense to me as to how normal they react to a visit from a dead spirit but then again I haven’t read or watched many plays. Maybe this is a normal occurrence in plays of this era or in general?
Wealthy Body 