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Reading and Literature Studies · Reading Literary Texts

Hamlet, Part 3: Acts 4 and 5: Foils, Motifs and How the Themes Resolve

1.6 1.3About 75 minutes
Learning goals
  • I can summarize the key events of Acts 4 and 5 and identify the most important ideas.
  • I can explain how foil characters (Laertes and Fortinbras) develop the play's ideas about action and revenge.
  • I can trace motifs (rot and disease, poison, ears and words) and explain how they develop themes.
  • I can explain how Hamlet's attitude changes in Act 5 and how the ending resolves the play's themes.

Words to know

foil
A character whose traits contrast with another's, highlighting them.
motif
A repeated image, idea or phrase that builds meaning across a text.
theme
An insight about life that a text develops, stated as a sentence.
mortality
The fact that all living things must die.
providence
The idea that God or fate guides events.
catastrophe
In tragedy, the final scene of disaster in which the main characters die.
memento mori
Latin for remember that you will die: an object, such as a skull, that reminds people of death.

Hook: when the waiting ends

For three acts, Hamlet has thought, tested, doubted and delayed. In Act 4 he is sent away, and in Act 5 he comes back changed: calmer, almost peaceful. Meanwhile, others have stopped waiting. A grieving son storms the palace demanding revenge. A foreign prince marches an army across Denmark. By the final scene, the stage is crowded with the dead. This lesson looks at how the ending answers the questions the play has been asking.

Act 4 in brief

(Content note: Acts 4 and 5 include Ophelia's mental breakdown and her death by drowning, which may or may not have been intentional, and several deaths in the final scene. Nothing is described graphically.)

  • 4.1 to 4.3: Claudius, alarmed by Polonius's death, sends Hamlet to England with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who carry a sealed letter secretly ordering the English king to execute Hamlet. Hamlet hides Polonius's body and answers questions with dark jokes.
  • 4.4: On his way, Hamlet sees Fortinbras's army marching to fight over a worthless patch of land in Poland. In a soliloquy found in the Second Quarto, he shames himself again and resolves: O, from this time forth, / My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!
  • 4.5: Ophelia, grieving her father and rejected by Hamlet, has lost her reason. She sings fragments of songs and hands out flowers (There's rosemary, that's for remembrance). Laertes returns from France with a mob, demanding revenge for his father.
  • 4.6: A letter reveals that Hamlet's ship was attacked by pirates, and he has escaped back to Denmark.
  • 4.7: Claudius and Laertes plot: in a fencing match, Laertes will use a sharp, poisoned sword; as backup, Claudius will offer Hamlet a poisoned drink. Gertrude brings news that Ophelia has drowned in a brook.

Act 5 in brief

  • 5.1: Two gravediggers joke while digging a grave and argue about whether Ophelia, who may have taken her own life, should receive a Christian burial. Hamlet and Horatio arrive. Hamlet picks up the skull of Yorick, the King's jester he loved as a child: Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest. He reflects that death makes everyone equal: even Alexander the Great turned to dust. Ophelia's funeral arrives; Hamlet and Laertes fight in her grave.
  • 5.2: Hamlet tells Horatio he discovered the death warrant and rewrote it, so that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern will be executed instead. He now speaks of providence: There's a divinity that shapes our ends, / Rough-hew them how we will and the readiness is all. At the match, Gertrude drinks the poisoned cup; Laertes wounds Hamlet with the poisoned blade; in a scuffle the swords are exchanged and Hamlet wounds Laertes. Dying, Laertes confesses: The King, the King's to blame. Hamlet finally kills Claudius. Hamlet asks Horatio to tell his story, then dies: The rest is silence. Horatio: Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince. Fortinbras arrives, finds the royal family dead, and claims the throne of Denmark.
Hamletfather murdered by Claudiusthinks, tests, delaysLaertesfather killed by Hamletacts at once, no questions;is used by ClaudiusFortinbrasfather killed by Old Hamletacts boldly, with an army,and ends up kingfoilfoilThree sons, three dead fathers, three ways to respond.
Laertes and Fortinbras are foils for Hamlet: each is a son whose father was killed. Their quick, decisive action highlights Hamlet's reflection, and shows what unthinking action can cost.
Worked example

Let's explain how foils develop a theme

How does Laertes's response to his father's death develop the play's ideas about revenge and action?

  1. Laertes's response: he acts immediately: returns with a mob, threatens the King, and swears he will cut Hamlet's throat i' th' church. He does not doubt or investigate.
  2. Contrast with Hamlet: Hamlet questioned the Ghost, tested the King with a play and refused to kill at prayer. Laertes has none of these scruples.
  3. The result: Laertes's quick action makes him easy for Claudius to use. He agrees to a cheating, poisoned duel, which dishonours him and kills him.
  4. Theme: revenge without thought is not heroic; it turns a grieving son into a tool of the very corruption he is fighting. The foil makes Hamlet's delay look wiser, even as it remains costly.

Laertes shows the opposite of Hamlet's delay: instant revenge. Because he doesn't think, Claudius manipulates him into dishonour and death, suggesting that revenge without reflection is as destructive as reflection without action.

Motifs: how images build themes

Shakespeare repeats certain images across the play so that they gather meaning:

  • Rot and disease. In 1.2 Hamlet calls the world an unweeded garden; in 1.4 something is rotten in the state of Denmark; Claudius admits my offence is rank (foul-smelling) in 3.3; Hamlet warns his mother not to ignore the ulcerous place in 3.4. The graveyard in 5.1 brings the motif down to bones and skulls. Theme: a hidden crime at the top corrupts a whole kingdom, the way infection spreads through a body.
  • Poison. Old Hamlet is poisoned through the ear; the Mousetrap re-enacts it; the final scene has a poisoned cup and a poisoned blade that kill the King, Queen, Laertes and Hamlet. Theme: the original crime's poison spreads until it destroys the whole royal house.
  • Ears and words. The Ghost says the false story of the serpent abused the whole ear of Denmark; Gertrude says Hamlet's words like daggers enter in mine ears; Claudius worries that gossip will infect Laertes's ear. Theme: in this court, words poison as surely as poison does: lies, spying and rumours do real damage.
Act 1Act 2Act 3Act 4Act 5Rot and diseaseunweeded gardenulcerous placeskulls, the gravePoisonpoured in the earthe Mousetrapcup and bladeEars and words"the whole ear""like daggers""infect his ear"
Three motifs and where key examples fall. Poison moves from the ear (Act 1) to the stage (Act 3) to the whole court (Act 5), as if the corruption the Ghost described spreads until it destroys everyone.
Worked example

Let's trace Hamlet's change in Act 5

How has Hamlet's attitude to action changed by 5.2, and how does this resolve the play's tension between thought and action?

  1. Before: in Acts 1 to 4, Hamlet wanted to control revenge: prove the King's guilt, choose the perfect moment, damn his soul. He blamed himself for thinking too much.
  2. The graveyard (5.1): holding Yorick's skull, he faces mortality directly: everyone, jester or emperor, ends as dust. This seems to calm him.
  3. After (5.2): he speaks of providence: There's a divinity that shapes our ends, / Rough-hew them how we will and the readiness is all. He no longer needs to plan everything; he will be ready when the moment comes.
  4. Resolution: he finally acts, not by a perfect plan but in the moment, when Laertes reveals the King's treachery. The tension between thought and action resolves through acceptance: he stops trying to control fate.
  5. Cost: acceptance comes too late to save anyone. The play ends with Hamlet's own words: The rest is silence.

Hamlet moves from trying to control revenge to accepting providence (the readiness is all). He acts at last, in the moment, but the delay has already cost nearly everyone's life.

Important ideaSupporting details
Corruption at the top spreads to everyone.Rot imagery; poison passing from the ear to the cup and blade; the whole royal family dies.
Revenge is costly, whether quick or delayed.Laertes's rash revenge destroys him; Hamlet's delay costs Polonius, Ophelia, Gertrude and himself.
Death makes everyone equal.Yorick's skull; Alexander returned to dust; the gravediggers' jokes.
Acceptance of uncertainty can bring peace.the readiness is all; Hamlet's calm in 5.2.
The most important ideas of Acts 4 and 5, with supporting details.

Ophelia

Ophelia's story is among the most painful in the play. She is told by her brother and father to reject Hamlet, used as bait in 3.1, rejected cruelly by Hamlet, and then loses her father to Hamlet's sword. Her songs in 4.5 mix grief and memory, and her flowers carry meanings (rosemary for remembrance, pansies for thoughts). Gertrude's speech reporting her death describes it gently, almost like a painting. Whether her drowning was an accident or intentional is left uncertain: the gravediggers argue about it, and the priest grants her only limited funeral rites. You will look at Ophelia through the gender lens in Lesson 14.

Note: there is no "Just for fun" block in this lesson, because it centres on Ophelia's breakdown and death and on the deaths of the final scene.

Hands-on activity

Motif tracker and final-scene map

You need: your copy of Hamlet, a notebook or large sheet of paper, and three coloured pens.

  1. Make a three-row tracker like the diagram: rot/disease, poison, ears/words. Find at least two more examples for each row with act, scene and a short quotation.
  2. On a separate page, draw a simple map of the stage in 5.2 and mark who is poisoned by what (cup or blade) and in what order.
  3. Explain to a family member, in under two minutes, how the poison in Act 1 connects to the final scene.

What to look for: quotations with act and scene; a correct order of deaths (Gertrude, then Claudius, then Laertes, then Hamlet; Hamlet and Laertes are both wounded by the poisoned blade before the King dies); an explanation linking the first crime to the ending.

Your turn

1

Why is Hamlet sent to England, and what is secretly planned?

2

What do Claudius and Laertes plan for the fencing match?

3

Explain why Laertes is a foil for Hamlet.

4

What does Yorick's skull lead Hamlet to reflect on?

5

Paraphrase the readiness is all.

6

Trace the poison motif from Act 1 to Act 5.

7

Who becomes king at the end, and why is that significant?

More practice: warm-up

1

Who drinks the poisoned cup?

2

Whose skull does Hamlet hold in 5.1?

3

How does Hamlet escape the ship to England?

4

What are Hamlet's last words?

5

What does rosemary stand for in Ophelia's speech?

More practice: on your own

1

How does Fortinbras's march over a worthless patch of land affect Hamlet in 4.4?

2

Explain how the rot and disease motif develops a theme.

3

Why might Shakespeare include comic gravediggers right before Ophelia's funeral?

4

Was Hamlet justified in sending Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their deaths? Give a reasoned answer.

5

How does the final scene complete the ears and words motif?

Challenge

1

Write an analytical paragraph explaining how the poison motif develops the theme that corruption spreads.

2

Some critics argue Hamlet's calm in Act 5 is wisdom; others call it giving up. Which reading does the text support better?

3

Fortinbras ends the play by claiming Denmark and ordering a soldier's funeral for Hamlet. Explain what this ending suggests about the cost of the Danish royal family's conflict.

Check your understanding

Quiz

1.

Laertes and Fortinbras are foils for Hamlet because they...

2.

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio introduces the theme of...

3.

Who reveals The King, the King's to blame?

4.

Which images belong to the rot and disease motif?

5.

The readiness is all shows that Hamlet has come to...

6.

Who becomes King of Denmark at the end?

For parents and teachers

What this lesson teaches: ENG3U Reading 1.6 (analysing how foils, motifs and structure develop themes) and 1.3 (identifying the most important ideas and supporting details), using Acts 4 and 5 of Hamlet.

Sensitive content: this lesson deals with Ophelia's mental breakdown and her drowning, which the play leaves possibly intentional, and the deaths of the final scene. There is deliberately no joke block. If your teen is affected by these themes, talk together; in Canada, anyone can call or text 9-8-8 at any time for support.

How to help at home:

  • Watch the graveyard scene (5.1) and the final scene (5.2) in a filmed version after reading.
  • Ask: Which character's response to a father's death do you think was wisest?

Common difficulties:

  • Confusing the order of deaths in 5.2. Draw it out.
  • Listing motifs without themes. Every motif needs an and this shows... sentence.
  • Forgetting the 4.4 soliloquy isn't in every edition. It's in the Second Quarto.

Facts used: quotations follow standard modern editions of Hamlet.