Address the following questions and support your answers with a specific example/passage from the reading: a) In the court scene (11.11), is Claudius genuine in his wish to keep Hamlet at court? He permits Laertes to return to France, yet he refuses to grant similar permission to Hamlet, so why would Claudius wish to keep Hamlet near? To please Gertrude? Or for some other reason or motive? b) What is Gertrude’s role in all this, and was her marriage to Claudius unduly hasty or a need to maintain stability in the state and the passage of time? Or were her actions less noble and that’s why Hamlet is justified in resenting and obsessing over his mother’s physical display of affection to the new husband Claudius? Explain. c) In Act II, how does the interaction between Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern help to explain what’s wrong with Hamlet, and why are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Denmark? d) Also, in Act II, Hamlet’s “0 what a rogue and peasant slave am I” is the first of his soliloquies, so what is he saying, how does this set of words help to move him to action, and what does he decide to do at the end of this speech?
