Hamlet



"To be, or not to be..."

Hamlet is Shakespeare's best-known play (if not, Romeo and Juliet is tied with it), and certainly his most over-analyzed. It is one of the most influential works of literature ever written.

Hamlet is the Prince of Denmark, whose uncle Claudius has succeeded the throne after Hamlet's own father mysteriously passed away. Hamlet receives evidence that Claudius murdered the late king to seize power, and decides to exact Revenge, covering his behavior by Obfuscating Insanity. As the play progresses, though, it becomes ambiguous as to whether Hamlet's really faking his madness. Complicating matters are the presence of a number of other characters: Ophelia, the object of Hamlet's affections; Polonius, her father and royal chancellor; Gertrude, Hamlet's mother who has now married her brother-in-law; and Claudius himself, who is well aware that Hamlet is Denmark's rightful heir and is scheming to remove him from the picture.

Shakespeare did not invent the story of Hamlet's quest to bring the murderer of his father to justice. The earliest surviving "record" is in the twelfth-century Gesta Danorum ("Deeds of the Danes"), by Saxo Grammaticus, wherein Hamlet -- or Amleth (Amlóði) as he's called in that version -- is shown as a legendary character who succeeds in destroying his uncle and becoming king, only to die in a later battle. The story was abbreviated and amended numerous times and had been presented as a play in English more than once when Shakespeare decided to tackle the story. By that time it had been changed almost beyond recognition -- Hamlet's mother, who had originally been forced to marry her brother-in-law, was now an accessory to his usurpation of the throne, while Hamlet had been turned into a Christian and aged a number of years.

Even more than is usual for Shakespeare, Hamlet is filled with expressions that have become clichés; examples include "Hoist by His Own Petard," "The lady doth protest too much," "Frailty, thy name is woman," and "The play's the thing". Oh, and something about whether or not to be that was really difficult to translate into Klingon. And that's not to mention many subtler neologisms that have wormed their way into everyday English.

Notable productions include

 * c.1605 -- the premiere at the Globe Theatre, London, with Richard Burbage playing the lead.
 * A two-minute 1900 film, Le Duel de Hamlet, showed the duel between Hamlet and Laertes, and may be the first filmed adaptation of the play. As this production starred Sarah Bernhardt as Hamlet, this means the first movie Hamlet was a Gender Flipped version.
 * The 1911-12 Moscow Art Theatre production, seeing the play as a symbolist melodrama with a very plain set.
 * Asta Nielsen made her own version in the 20's, based off of a book called "The Secret of Hamlet", where Hamlet was a Sweet Polly Oliver raised to secure her mother's position on the throne.
 * A 1948 film starring and directed by Laurence Olivier, which remains the only filmed Shakespeare to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. This is a heavily cut version (excluding such characters as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern entirely), with a murky Gothic aesthetic, and a prominent Freudian leaning (it carries Playing Gertrude to extremes--the actress playing Gertrude was eleven years younger than Olivier!)
 * A 1961 German made-for-TV production starring Maximillian Schell as Hamlet (with Ricardo Montalban dubbing Claudius into English). This version was featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 and information on that episode can be found here.
 * A 1964 Russian film directed by Grigori Kozintsev, starring Innokenty Smoktunovsky and scored by Dmitri Shostakovich. It uses Scenery Porn to "oust period stylization and express the essentials"; it's also more political than Olivier's version, probably reflecting its post-Joseph Stalin production. Despite lacking original text and being heavily truncated it was critically very well-received, but it's never been televised in the United States.
 * A 1980 BBC production starring Derek Jacobi and directed by Rodney Bennett. This is an almost full-text production, made as part of the BBC's complete Shakespeare series. Also notable for featuring Patrick Stewart as Claudius and Lalla Ward (Romana #2 in Doctor Who) as Ophelia.
 * A 1990 film directed by Franco Zefirelli and starring Mel Gibson, Glenn Close as Gertrude and Helena Bonham Carter as Ophelia. This is heavily cut and rearranged and probably even more Freudian than the Olivier version. However, Gibson was praised for playing a youthful, energetic Hamlet.
 * Another 1990 version is a filmed version of the play starring Kevin Kline, mostly notable for featuring minimal sets and modern costuming.
 * A 1996 film starring and directed by Kenneth Branagh. This is a highly lavish, cinematic full-text version set in the 1800s, which includes Brian Blessed (as the Ghost) and a Falling Chandelier of Doom. With Kate Winslet as Ophelia. Oh, and Robin Williams as Osric and Billy Crystal as the gravedigger. It's essentially Hamlet as an Epic Movie. Not financially successful, but critically acclaimed with some even calling it the greatest onscreen adaptation of Shakespeare.
 * A 2000 film directed by Michael Almereyda. Claudius is the CEO of Denmark Corp., and Hamlet is a disaffected film student. The characters still use the Shakesperean text despite the Setting Update.
 * Director Gregory Doran's 2008 production for the Royal Shakespeare Company had David Tennant as Hamlet and Patrick Stewart as Claudius. A film version was released in 2010, and can be seen here legally for free.
 * A 2015 production at the Barbican Theatre, directed by Lyndsey Turner and starring Benedict Cumberbatch.

Since Hamlet is almost always performed with cuts (performing the whole thing usually takes almost four hours), arguably every production is an adaptation, some even switching out scenes for pacing purposes (like the 2010 version did as explained here and here. Sometimes the basic idea is what's adapted, more or less faithfully, and little or none of the original language is used.

Some notable adaptations include:

 * The German play Hamletmaschine by Heiner Müller, a celebrated surrealist adaptation of Hamlet which still enjoys frequent performances 30 years after it was written... despite being completely incomprehensible.
 * Playwright Tom Stoppard wrote a Lower Deck Episode version called Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. It was later made into a film with Gary Oldman and Tim Roth.
 * Several weird internet versions, including:
 * The text adventure.
 * The stick figure version
 * The Manga version --Currently incomplete (but up to Act III) and starring characters from the anime Slayers.
 * Gamelet, an in-production video game with a You Will Be Beethoven premise.
 * The Facebook news feed edition.
 * The Nico Nico Douga medley techo-musical version.
 * The Dick and Jane version.
 * The Lion King is a rather loose adaptation by Disney. Minus the Downer Ending and Kill'Em All, obviously.
 * The play I Hate Hamlet in which a TV star has to play Hamlet on stage but is unsure. So he gets help from the ghost of one of the greatest Hamlets, John Barrymore.
 * The Wuxia film The Banquet, which is basically Hamlet IN FEUDAL CHINA! The most interesting difference is that the Gertrude stand-in is the stepmother of the Hamlet stand-in, and is actually the woman he was in love with before his father stole her away. She's also a lot more of a Magnificent Bastard.
 * The 1983 Bob and Doug MacKenzie adventure Strange Brew. Max von Sydow has taken control of Elsinore Brewery after killing his brother. Hamlet is actually a girl. Bob and Doug are essentially good-guy versions of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Oh, and there's a horde of Mind Controlled hockey players, one of whom is Horatio. It's Canadian. Don't ask.
 * An expansion of the MMORPG Mabinogi is switching from adapting Celtic Mythology to this. Whether it's gonna be one major patch or a series remains to be seen. It is now live on both Korean and NA servers. Still no word on whether or not it's a series or a patch,
 * After a line in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country claimed that Shakespeare's plays were actually the work of a Klingon, some fans took the trouble to actually translate the entire play into the Klingon language.
 * Parodied in Last Action Hero, casting Arnie as Hamlet and turning him into a The Ahnold. Hilarity Ensues.
 * A poorly received 2008 novella by Orson Scott Card where it turns out that Old King Hamlet was a
 * Green Eggs and Hamlet, a 1995 comedy film which retells the story in Dr. Seuss-style rhyme.

Many of the aforementioned film versions of the play, plus several others (nine total), are compared and contrasted in this neat little article.


 * Alas, Poor Yorick
 * Catch the Conscience
 * Country Matters
 * Foil
 * Get Thee to a Nunnery
 * Goodnight, Sweet Prince
 * Hoist by His Own Petard
 * Like a Weasel
 * The Ophelia
 * Playing Gertrude

"Polonius: The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral..."
 * Abusive Parents: Certain interpretations of Polonius show him as this towards Ophelia, manipulating her and keeping her emotionally stunted.
 * Added Alliterative Appeal: "Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief."
 * Adult Child: Hamlet is apparently 30 if the gravedigger scene is any indication. He doesn't act like it. Many, though not necessarily all, scholars think that he's actually in his late teens or maybe early twenties.
 * Alas, Poor Yorick: Trope Namer. Hamlet finds the skull of Yorick, the court jester, in the graveyard, prompting him to reflect on him mortality.
 * All There in the Script: Claudius is only named in the stage directions; the other characters all refer to him via sobriquets such as "the King" or "my uncle".
 * Anachronism Stew: Hamlet attends a university that was not founded until 300 years after the play was set and is a member of a religion that hadn't yet reached Denmark.
 * Anti-Hero: Hamlet, ranging from III and IV. He acts rudely to many who (may) mean him no harm, kills for spying on him (though he seemed to think it was Claudius hiding and watching) and has  and  sent to death (it is arguable what are their personal intentions over them spying for Claudius, making Hamlet's actions to them be justifiable to varying degrees).
 * Author Filibuster: Hamlet's famous lecture on properly acting a scene he'd written.
 * Black and Gray Morality: Few if any of the primary characters are indisputably virtuous.
 * Black Comedy: Can be played this way, and it's hilarious:
 * "He will stay till ye come." (Hamlet about Polonius' body)
 * Also when Hamlet quips that Polonius is at a feast, "not where he eats, but where he is eaten" (by worms). Really, Hamlet has a lot of darkly humorous lines, especially when he's faking insanity.
 * Bluffing the Murderer: Hamlet's reason for staging The Murder of Gonzago.
 * Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: The earliest example:

""Do you think I mean country matters?""
 * Break the Cutie: Ophelia. See also Butt Monkey, Kill the Cutie, and The Woobie.
 * Broken Bird: We don't meet Hamlet until after he has been broken, but according to his friends he used to be a generous, loving, and level-headed man. Due to his father's death and his uncle's betrayal, he is consumed by his own sadness and therefore unable to trust or show compassion to anyone. He cruelly mocks Ophelia, but he would not be this way if it hadn't been for the tragedy of his father's murder.
 * The audience gets a front row seat to Ophelia's breakdown over the course of the play, as her father uses her as a political tool, her brother jaunts off to foreign lands, her boyfriend abuses her and then murders her father, and finally Ophelia cracks.
 * Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Hamlet and Ophelia could be seen as a deconstruction. Ophelia's gentleness makes her unwilling to defy her father's orders to stop seeing Hamlet. Hamlet is so intent on his own problems that he casts Ophelia aside without a thought for how his actions will hurt her. Their respective traits mean that each one disappoints the other, right in their hour of need.
 * But Not Too Evil: Lots of people seem to ignore who says "brevity is the soul of wit" and treat it as Shakespeare's own views.
 * Cain and Abel: Claudius murders his brother prior to the beginning of the story.
 * Captain Obvious:
 * is the master of this trope. Appropriately enough, his last words are, "O! I am slain!" It has been assumed he says that due to the difficulty the audience would have had confirming the death of a character behind a curtain, but still....
 * Several minor characters in the play find themselves playing this trope as Hamlet verbally spars with them; they revert to saying inanities because they're so vastly outmatched in wit -- witty though they might be compared with almost anyone in almost any other play.
 * Catch the Conscience: Trope Namer. Hamlet hires an acting troupe to perform a play about a king being murdered, with a few additions to make it more like Claudius's murder of King Hamlet, to get a reaction out of Claudius.
 * Character Filibuster: Through the character of Hamlet talking to a performer, Shakespeare tells people about his pet peeves in acting.
 * Comforting the Widow: Claudius "comforts" Gertrude. It helps win him the throne. On the other hand, he does seem to genuinely love her. It is not an unpopular Alternate Character Interpretation that the throne was an afterthought and Claudius killed the king solely for Gertrude.
 * Country Matters: Trope Namer.
 * Creator Cameo: It is said that Shakespeare himself provided for the role of Hamlet's father in the 1600's.
 * Curtain Camouflage: Poor Polonius should have picked a better place to hide.
 * Dare to Be Badass: Hamlet tries to talk himself into it; "To Be Or Not To Be" is an attempt that fails. It takes him maybe three acts, but he finally gets the point with "My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!"
 * Darker and Edgier: Considered one of Shakespeare's darkest plays.
 * Dead Person Conversation: With the ghost of King Hamlet.
 * Deconstruction: Of the "revenge drama" in vogue at the time.
 * Defeat Means Friendship: At least between Laertes and Hamlet. Unusual in that no one has really defeated the other, as the fight results in both their deaths.
 * Deus Ex Machina: In Act IV, Hamlet is conveniently kidnapped by pirates on his way to England, who kindly return him to Denmark just in time for the play's climax.
 * However, there's several subtle points of the play that imply he may have arranged the "pirate attack" himself.
 * Double Entendre: Ubiquitous throughout the entire play. Let these guys do it instead. Scroll down to #2.

"Hamlet: The rest is silence."
 * The 2008 RSC production made this into a Single Entendre by leaving a pause between the first and second syllables of 'country'.
 * A version, sometimes played at the Globe, is performed with the actors using the "Original Pronunciation" that would have been standard at the time of Shakespeare as well as among his audience. The newly resulting homophonies (e.g. "from hour to hour we ripe and ripe" thus sounds close to "from whore to whore we rape and rape") uncover "new" entendres that are lost in the modern idiom.
 * Thanks to the change in pronunciation and the archaic language in the play, many double entendres and sex jokes that would have caused the early 17th century playgoers to bust a gut laughing sail right over the heads of most modern viewers.
 * Double Standard: Polonius forbids his daughter to so much as spend time with Hamlet, but doesn't see much harm in spreading rumors that his son visits brothels. Ophelia doesn't buy into this, and tells her brother he'd be a hypocrite if he admonished her to be chaste and then went off and had sex himself.
 * Downer Ending: Almost every single important character in the play is dead at the end, from Hamlet to Ophelia to Hamlet's mother, in a mass suicide/manslaughter/murder spree. It's not entirely dark, though: Hamlet achieved his goal of avenging his father and getting Claudius off the throne, and while he didn't live to take the throne himself, it's going to someone he approves of (at least in productions where Fortinbras isn't left out).
 * Driven to Suicide: Hamlet himself discusses the trope: his "To be or not to be" is a long meditation the fear of death versus a life of struggling (whether it was sincere, or a ploy for the benefit of the spying King and Polonius, is up to the production). Queen Gertrude reports Ophelia's death to have been an accident, but the man who digs her grave says she shouldn't be buried in holy ground, because she drowned herself.
 * Dropping the Bombshell: "My lord, I think I saw him yesternight."
 * Due to the Dead
 * Emo Teen: Hamlet, the original emo kid, is a brooding pessimist who dresses all in black and pontificates about suicide. He's also spoilt, and resents his mother for remarrying. The slight hitch occurs in the Gravedigger scene, where it's stated that Hamlet is actually somewhere in his 30s. This means either (A) Hamlet is too old to be acting like this, adding to the theory that he's crazy, or (B) Hamlet isn't 30 and Shakespeare made another mathematical error. Shakespeare scholars have suggested that the Gravedigger's line was thrown in at the insistence of Richard Burbage, the actor who originally played the lead role and was probably unwilling to play a teenager. Or maybe Shakespeare could do maths just fine, but the gravedigger can't.
 * Alternatively, the gravedigger had it right, but later translations got it wrong. In the original spelling of the Folio text, one of the two authoritative texts for the play, the Gravedigger's answer to how long he has "been a grave-maker" reads "Why heere in Denmarke: I haue bin sixeteene heere, man and Boy thirty yeares..." "Sixteene" is usually rendered as "sexton" (a modernization of the second quarto's "sexten"), even in modern texts that take F1 as their "copy text". But modernizing the punctuation — a normal practice in modernized texts — renders "Why heere in Denmarke: I haue bin sixeteene heere—man and Boy thirty yeares." In other words, this reading suggests that he has been a grave-digger for sixteen years, but that he has lived in Denmark for thirty. According to this logic, then, it is the Grave-digger who is thirty, whereas Hamlet is only sixteen.
 * However, the teenage-Hamlet theory still doesn't explain how Hamlet can remember Yorick, who he says died twenty-three years ago.
 * Everybody's Dead, Dave: The only major named characters who survive are Horatio and Fortinbras (who is often left out). A messenger even arrives at the very end to assure you that, yes, even Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.
 * Evil Uncle: Claudius.
 * Famous Last Words:

"'tis the sport to have the engineer Hoist with his own petard"
 * Fatal Flaw: It's widely agreed that Hamlet has one . There's rather less agreement on what, specifically, it is.
 * Fleeting Demographic: Determining, of all things, the setting: Shakespeare probably chose the Hamlet story as an appeal to James I's theater-loving queen -- Anne of Denmark.
 * Foil: Hamlet has several. Most notable are Fortinbras, Horatio and Laertes. Before they fight, Hamlet (mockingly and very ironically) refers to himself as a foil to Laertes, thus making this play a possible Trope Namers. Also the swords which they are using are called foils making that line a Pun.
 * Also, the player who weeps Tender Tears over Hecuba overtly inspires Hamlet to reflect on the contrast between them.
 * Gender Scoff: "Frailty, thy name is woman!"
 * Get Thee to a Nunnery: Trope Namer. The play contains several double entendres that go over the heads of modern audiences; among the best known are the "nunnery" and the "fishmonger" (slang for a brothel and a pimp, respectively), from the scene where Polonius tries to manipulate Hamlet through Ophelia.
 * Gondor Calls for Aid: Fortinbras's entrance is somewhere between this and Deus Ex Machina.
 * Goodnight, Sweet Prince: Trope Namer. The phrase originates in Horatio's farewell to the dying Hamlet in the final act.
 * Guess Who I'm Marrying: The actual reveal happens before the play starts, so the story is about the fallout from this trope.
 * Hero of Another Story: Fortinbras, who has his own revenge plot (directed against Hamlet's father/the Danes), and whose movements are referenced throughout the play, although he only appears in person at the end, wherein his revenge completely succeeds and he conquers Denmark (aided by almost everyone else being dead).
 * Hoist by His Own Petard:
 * Rosencrantz and Guildenstern deliver their own death warrant, not realising that Hamlet altered the document before his escape by replacing his name with theirs. Hamlet remarks:

"Laertes: Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric, I am justly killed with mine own treachery."
 * Claudius and Laertes are killed by their own poison.

"My words fly up: my thoughts remain below. Words without thoughts never to heaven go."
 * Hot-Blooded: Played straight with Laertes on Ophelia's death, and with Fortinbras who goes to war over a valueless piece of land. Hamlet himself subverts this, claiming to admire these characters but never taking the initiative himself and passing up chances to kill his target. In something of a contradiction he castigates himself for own his lack of passion ("I am pidgeon livered and lack gall") while praising Horatio for it ("Give me the man who is not passion's slave and I will wear him in my heart's core").
 * Hurricane of Aphorisms: Polonius.
 * Hurricane of Puns: The whole play.
 * Hypocritical Humor: Polonius. For example, he gives the well-known line "brevity is the soul of wit" -- at the end of a very long-winded speech -- but he is one of the least brief and least witty talkers around. He proceeds to give plenty of other advice that he also doesn't follow. Later, he complains that the Player King's speech is too long.
 * Ignored Epiphany: Claudius comes to realize what evil he's done, but keeps right on being evil.

"I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another."
 * Incest Is Relative: Hamlet is very squicked at the idea of his mother and his uncle doing the nasty.
 * Innocent Innuendo: Ophelia and Laertes, brother and sister, admonish each other to remain chaste. They probably don't mean to get as graphic as they do. Ophelia's going to keep her lock to herself, not open up her chaste treasure to Hamlet's unmastered importunity, while Laertes will keep his key to himself and reck his own rede (wreck his own reed).
 * Irony: In a Long List to Ophelia about all the things he hates about women, Hamlet says he dislikes women pretending not to know things in front of men. Ophelia often has to resort to pretending to know nothing to try and pacify Hamlet or in an attempt to avoid further humiliation such as in Act III, Scene 2 where he makes crude jokes in front of the whole court. Ashamed, Ophelia says, ‘I think nothing’ which instead fuels more lewd comments. The irony appears lost on Hamlet.
 * It's All About Me: When Hamlet comes across Laertes burying Ophelia, his beloved sister, how does he react? He claims that he loved Ophelia far more than her brother did, and no woe can possibly equal his.
 * Karma Houdini: Discussed when Hamlet considers murdering Claudius while Claudius is praying, which Hamlet worries would send him (Claudius) to Heaven. Subverted when, after Hamlet departs, Claudius reveals that he was not actually praying ("Words without thoughts never to Heaven go"), so Hamlet's hesitation was moot.
 * Karmic Death: Ophelia and King Hamlet didn't suffer this. Everyone else who died -- i.e., almost the entire cast -- did, in one way or another.
 * Kick the Dog: Hamlet's treatment of Ophelia, with all the Double Entendre slang and then having the balls to ask to put his head in her lap, and to accuse her of being a spy for her father. Lampshaded by Claudius when he says that, contrary to Polonius's belief that Hamlet may be lovesick to Ophelia, he seems to be "melancholy" instead.
 * Kill'Em All: The play has become famous for this, even though it was a standard trope in tragedy at the time. Actually, Horatio and Fortinbras are both still alive at play's end.
 * Kill Him Already: A major part of the premise.
 * Kill the Cutie: Ophelia.
 * Leaning on the Fourth Wall: During Act III, Hamlet says "my father died within these two hours". This at first seems like an accident, but how long has the play been going on at this point?
 * Also, virtually everything to do with the Players.
 * Like a Weasel: Trope Namer. Polonius is like this all the time. Osric, too.
 * Local Reference: The gravedigger says that Hamlet has been sent to England to cure his madness, and if it doesn't work nobody will notice since everyone there is mad anyway.
 * Love Hurts: It also kills.
 * Make-up Is Evil: One charge he brings against Ophelia

"Hamlet: For thou dost know, O Damon dear, This realm dismantled was Of Jove himself; and now reigns here A very, very -- pajock. Horatio: You might have rhymed."
 * Malaproper: The First Gravedigger, though unfortunately his slips (like saying "argal" when he means "ergo") can be very easy to miss given all the formal language surrounding them.
 * Malicious Slander: "Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny."
 * Man Child: Hamlet is apparently 30, if the gravedigger scene is any indication, but continues to live with his parents, has not found a wife, does not possess a castle or any other feudal fief, and in general has not accomplished anything one would expect of a college-educated nobleman (many, though not necessarily all, scholars think that he's actually in his late teens or maybe early twenties).
 * The Masochism Tango: Hamlet's terrible treatment of Ophelia.
 * Most Writers Are Writers: Hamlet and Polonius are obsessed with words and the craft of writing, and Hamlet has a lot of opinions about the right and wrong way to act.
 * My God, What Have I Done?: Hamlet on witnessing Ophelia's funeral, and he only admits that he loves her after Laertes demands to be buried with his sister.
 * Nietzsche Wannabe: "What a piece of work is man... and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me."
 * Obfuscating Insanity: Hamlet fakes insanity. Or hell, maybe he is actually insane. Or possibly he's faking insanity and is actually insane.
 * Old Windbag: Polonius
 * Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Horatio is a scholar, so of course he knows how to speak to a ghost. Except it doesn't work. The ghost may be offended.
 * The Ophelia: Trope Namer. Ophelia becomes the Ophelia after going mad in Act IV — after her boyfriend stabs her dad through a curtain, her sanity quickly decays. Her brother, Laertes, returns to Elsinore from Paris in a rush, but by the time he gets there, Ophelia doesn't even recognize him. Her famous "mad scene" consists of singing filthy, bawdy songs that are out of place with her demure mien, strewing flowers, and sobbing over her father's death. The Queen later reports Ophelia drowned, saying she was collecting flowers by the riverbank and was so distracted she didn't even recognize the danger when she fell in and sank, but kept singing. Her gravediggers darkly assert she was Driven to Suicide, and is now damned.
 * Overprotective Dad: Polonius again.
 * Parent with New Paramour: A big source of Hamlet's angst.
 * Parting Words Regret: Hamlet at Ophelia's funeral, after spending most of the play tormenting her and implying she was a slut. It's only after Laertes jumps into his sister's grave that Hamlet declares his love for Ophelia, when she's dead and unable to hear him.
 * Pet the Dog: Claudius prays and confesses his sins, unaware that Hamlet is watching him. He also states that it will not be enough to absolve him as he still benefits from his sins. Though some adaptations seem to imply that Claudius knows that Hamlet is listening and prays because he knows that Hamlet will not kill him while he is confessed because that means he will go to heaven.
 * Please Shoot the Messenger: Claudius famously sends Hamlet off to England with a message (and with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to watch him). The message directs the English to kill the person holding it. Hamlet manages to escape, and gives them the message to deliver instead.
 * Protagonist Centred Morality: When asked about the fact that he knowingly sent Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their deaths, Hamlet replies that they are "not near his conscience".
 * Pungeon Master: Hamlet.
 * Rasputinian Death: Claudius. Although it's likely Hamlet's determination to make sure he's Killed Off for Real.
 * Revenge: Hamlet was written in the tradition of the revenge tragedies that were popular in the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras.
 * Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies: The final scene sees most of the cast dead with almost farcical suddenness.
 * Royal We: Claudius uses this with abandon— though not, notably, during his soliloquy in the church ("Oh, my offense is rank...").
 * Show Within a Show: The Murder of Gonzago (for Catch the Conscience).
 * Sibling Triangle: Claudius murders his brother and marries his brother's wife. Interpretations vary as to how complicit Gertrude is in the plot.
 * Sketchy Successor: The late King Hamlet is considered a ruler among rulers. King Claudius assassinated him to get the job and spends his reign doing nothing but trying to keep people from becoming suspicious. Also inverted at the end of Hamlet, after everyone has died. The Danish crown is passed down to King Fortinbras, monarch of Norway. Throughout the story, it is mentioned that Denmark and Norway are having conflicts, but by the end, the entire Danish royal family is dead and Fortinbras is implied to be an improvement over Claudius.
 * Sleazy Politician: Polonius in certain interpretations, also Claudius, who quickly turns the rebellious Laertes to his side.
 * Slut Shaming: What Hamlet does to Ophelia with his Double Entendre words, and implying to Polonious that she is pregnant.
 * Speech Impediment: In certain interpretations, Ophelia does have a lisp, and some of her lines actually reflect this (for example, "twice two months" is understood as "two-es...two months). This gives Hamlet's line ("...you lisp, you nickname God's creatures...") a second, literal meaning.
 * Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion:

"Gertrude: O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!"
 * Suddenly Always Knew That: Hamlet has "been in continual practise" at fencing since Laertes went to France. Really? Because not a single word was uttered about that until Act V, Scene II. Kenneth Branagh's film version actually has Hamlet practicing continually.
 * Surrogate Soliloquy: The Alas, Poor Yorick bit.
 * Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Osric can very easily be argued to be this to Polonius.
 * Sword Fight: Hamlet vs. Laertes.
 * Take That, Audience!: The First Gravedigger casually insults England, saying that everyone there is mad.
 * Talkative Loon: Hamlet (feigned), Ophelia (real).
 * Tender Tears: A player, over Hecuba.
 * That Cloud Looks Like...: In a surreal touch, this scene is often set indoors, far from any windows.
 * Those Two Guys: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
 * Together in Death:
 * Attempted by Horatio, when he tries to poison himself to follow Hamlet. Averted by Hamlet, who ordered Horatio to live.
 * Tomato Surprise: During the duel with Laertes, Gertrude casually mentions that Hamlet is "fat and scant of breath". This fact seemingly justifies the whole deal with everyone assuming fight will immediately make him thirsty. Authenticity of this line is fiercely challenged by many Shakespearean scholars, who argue it's supposed to read "hot", not "fat"; or that "fat" is Shakespeare using an archaic regional term for "sweaty".
 * Too Dumb to Live: Hey, Polonius. Maybe it's not a good idea to hide behind the curtains while spying on Hamlet. *stab* Never mind.
 * Tragedy: One of William Shakespeare's four major tragedies.
 * A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: After blowing his first chance to kill Claudius, Hamlet strikes out blindly at a shape in the curtains he thinks is Claudius. This turns out to be Polonius, who is the father of the woman Hamlet loves, which sends everything straight to hell for him.
 * Tragic Hero
 * Tragic Mistake: Hamlet's downfall can be traced back to the moment where he sees Claudius at prayer and decides to wait until later to avenge his father.
 * Upper Class Twit: Polonius. Osric.
 * What Happened to the Mouse?: Reynaldo is an agent of Polonius's sent to both spy on and ruin the reputation of Laertes when the latter leaves for France. Whatever actual impact Reynaldo has on anything is never touched on, and he hasn't returned to Denmark by the end of the play.
 * What the Hell, Hero?: After Hamlet kills Polonius.


 * World of Hamlet
 * Writers Cannot Do Math:
 * Hamlet is at least 27 if his memory of Yorick is to be believed, but he was studying at Wittenberg University when his father died (see Anachronism Stew above). In Shakespeare's time, most university students were teenagers. People seem to forget this when insisting that Hamlet must be thirty years old. There is a theory that Shakespeare originally wrote for Hamlet to been in his teens but somewhere towards the end decided to age him up so a specific actor could play the part.
 * Dawn comes, by Horatio's count, one hundred seconds after midnight.
 * You Killed My Father: The main plot. Also, the reason Laertes kills Hamlet and possibly why Fortinbras wants to invade Denmark.

The Play Within A Play contains examples of the following tropes:


 * Does This Remind You of Anything?: And how!
 * Karma Houdini: Lucianus, unless his comeuppance was left out of the dumb-show and occurred after the play is stopped.
 * Stylistic Suck: A spoileriffic dumb show followed by a series of tedious heroic couplets. This may be Hamlet's fault, since he rewrote bits of it, and was more concerned with trying to Catch the Conscience of Claudius than with coming up with a truly decent play.
 * Trailers Always Spoil: Before the play properly starts, three clowns come out and act out almost the entire plot. Many modern productions omit this part, since you're not supposed to spoil The Mousetrap.

In addition to all the above, the Klingon version also contains examples of the following tropes:


 * Alternate History: Wherein Earth has owed tribute to Qo'noS.
 * Anachronism Stew: In-universe.