Hamlet: Act 3, Scene 2 Summary & Analysis

Again, this passage would have been recognizable to Shakespeare’s audiences as Shakespeare’s tongue-in-cheek expression of frustration with the state of some aspects of the theater of his day. Hamlet’s critique of ingenuine actors is ironic, considering it is unclear throughout the play whether Hamlet’s own dialogue is rooted in genuine madness or merely a front to get to the truth of his father’s death.

Hamlet delights in ordering around the very people he most hates—he knows they’re scheming against him, but also knows they have no choice but to listen to royalty.

Hamlet's explanation of his scheme regarding the play is, on one level, plot explication—in having Hamlet tell Horatio what will happen, Shakespeare is also telling the audience. Further, in this way Shakespeare creates dramatic irony, because the audience now knows what will happen while Claudius and Gertrude and everyone else have no idea. Meanwhile, Hamlet's joy at seeing Horatio testifies to his weariness at being surrounded by people whom he knows are themselves scheming against him, and his happiness in sharing his own scheme suggests, perhaps, that Hamlet is also tired at having to constantly be scheming and pretending himself.

This passage is doubly cheeky, as it references one of Shakespeare’s other play, Julius Caesar, and features Hamlet dangling Caesar’s brutal murder in front of Claudius’s face in order to make him squirm.

Even though Hamlet and Ophelia have had a huge fight, they must coexist with one another at court. This scene can be interpreted many ways: either Hamlet is preying upon the vulnerable Ophelia, devastating her with his harassment—or Ophelia, cool and capable, spars with Hamlet and matches his wit, proving her strength even in the face of his lack of favor.

The pantomime before the play—a tradition in some forms of Renaissance and Elizabethan theater—exposes the fact that the play will mirror the events of King Hamlet’s murder. Ophelia can tell what Hamlet is up to—but Hamlet attempts to distract her from ruining the performance and exposing his plan by further harassing her with lewd comments.

The player queen’s remarks about not even being able to imagine marrying another are meant to make Gertrude squirm. Claudius is not Hamlet’s only target—Hamlet wants to use the play to call out the bad behavior of everyone around him and condemn his mother in the same breath as his uncle.

Hamlet knows that the play is making his mother and uncle uncomfortable—but maintains that it shouldn’t, since it’s just fiction. Hamlet is blurring the line between appearance and reality, fact and fiction, as he forces the king and queen to look at their own actions head-on.

Hamlet’s plan has worked—the king, offended or frightened by the actions taking place on stage, has removed himself from the performance—in Hamlet’s eyes, this equates to Claudius admitting that he is guilty of his brother’s murder.

Hamlet feels victorious, and is sick of being bossed around and dragged about the castle based on the whims of others. He feels he is in control and powerful—he has the upper hand over both Claudius and his mother, and intends to enjoy it.

Hamlet is sick of everyone plotting against him and attempting to play him—he can no longer keep his cool, and lashes out at the weak Rosencrantz and Guildenstern for their transparent betrayal. 

In this moment after he believes that he has proved Claudius's guilt, Hamlet is suddenly coursing with energy and ready to act—to kill. But then he restrains himself once more, because he now must go and see his mother. So he tells himself to be violent in what he says to her, but not to use actual violence, to once more focus on speaking rather than doing. Once more social bonds and rules cause Hamlet to put off taking action. In this case, that social rule is pretty simple—don't kill your mother. At the same time, that he has say this to himself at all hints at the violence that women regularly face when acting in ways that the men around them disapprove of. Finally, there is a further implication here that Hamlet thinks his mother has made a terrible mistake in marrying Claudius, but not that she bears any guilt in what happened to her husband.