The Hamlet Site: Act 5 Summary

Objective for this Page: To summarize act V, analyzing the play’s conclusion.

In scene 1, the returning Hamlet muses in a graveyard over the nature of mortality shortly before he and Laertes wind up fighting in Ophelia's grave, arguing over who loved her more. Thus is the conflict between Hamlet and Laertes sealed.

In scene 2, Hamlet tells Horatio how he substituted his own letters for Claudius' before the pirates attacked their ship--and that he knows Claudius sent him to England to be beheaded. Osric presents a challenge to a sword fight, noting that the king has bet on him against Laertes. Laertes is fighting with a poisoned sword; Claudius toasts to Hamlet, dropping into the wine a poisoned pearl. Gertrude drinks from the cup instead and realizes she has been poisoned. When she dies, Laertes, wounded by his own poisoned sword with which he had slashed at Hamlet between rounds of the sword fight, reveals that Claudius is behind it all. Hamlet kills the king, but dies himself.

In the play, Fortinbras arrives and begins to arrange Hamlet's funeral, implying that Fortinbras will restore order to Denmark now that the royal house has died off.

Ready for What?

typehand.gif (8738 bytes) Posting Option #30: Notice Hamlet's last comment before the sword fight (V, ii, 202-207). If "the readiness is all," what is it that Hamlet is ready for? How do Hamlet's soliloquies in this play help to trace the emotional change he has had to make to reach this point of readiness?

Is Hamlet's Death Justice?

Posting Option #31: In the grand scheme of things, why does Hamlet have to die? Why can't he live to take over the throne that was really usurped from him by the guilty, tyrannical Claudius?

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The URL for this page is: http://vccslitonline.cc.va.us/TheHamletSite/act5.htm