Act 5 Scene 1

The scene opens upon two graves diggers, assigned with the task of digging Ophelia's grave. One of them mentions that he believes that Ophelia committed suicide, however, she gets a Christian burial because she is part of the nobility. Hamlet and Horatio enter and watch as the gravediggers make room for the new casket by throwing out old skulls. Hamlet reflects on mortality, and he mentions that no matter what happens in life, it always ends with death. Hamlet converses with one of the clowns (who doesn't seem to recognize Hamlet) and mentions how peasants have grown too comfortable in talking to nobility in recent years. The gravedigger unearths another skull and mentions that it belongs to Yorick, King Hamlet's old jester and one of Hamlet's childhood friends. Hamlet picks up the skull and comments on how Yorick is unable to make jokes and play around as he used to. Hamlet then comments that death reduces great Kings to nothing more than dust. Suddenly, Gertrude, Claudius, Laertes, a Priest, and other courtiers enter carrying Ophelia's coffin. Hamlet and Horatio are not seen by them. The Priest mentions that Claudius ordered that Ophelia have a Christian burial, even though her death was suspected to be a suicide. Laertes is convinced that his pure sister will be an angel in heaven, and Gertrude reveals that she wishes that Ophelia had grown to be Hamlet's wife. We see Hamlet realize Ophelia has died, and he seems distraught. Laertes, stricken with grief, leaps into Ophelia's grave in order to hold Ophelia one last time, but Hamlet reveals himself and claims that his grief is grater than that of Laertes. Laertes attempts to strangle Hamlet, but Claudius orders the guards to pull the two apart. Horatio holds Hamlet back as Hamlet claims that he loved Ophelia greatly, and that "forty thousand brothers/Could not with all their quantity of love/Make up [his] sum" (5.1.236-238). He claims that he will be able to match anything that Laertes will do out of grief, and he leaves. Claudius orders Horatio to look after Hamlet, and he tells Laertes that they must hurry and kill Hamlet.



My favorite character in this scene has to be the first Clown, and I would love the opportunity to perform the role one day. There are so many ways to interpret the character, but I would love to see a comedic clown in contrast with the dreary graveyard. I wouldn't play it as a slapstick role, but there are so many opportunities to exhibit dark humor and play off of Hamlet's confusion and the other clown's inquiries. The Clown is obviously very comfortable around death, whether it be because of his humorous disposition or his daily job, and he has to have a certain charisma that fascinates Hamlet. The familiarity that the Clown has with death allows for Hamlet to finally reach a calming conclusion about it before he faces his own death in the following scene, and this is what amazes me about him. Hamlet was searching for complicated answers about the nature of death throughout the show, yet in order to discover the truth, all he had to do was stop and talk to another person. The audience gets the chance to see commoners and nobility having a conversation that concerns all humans - and that really communicates the fact that we're all human and will have to face death eventually, no matter what social class. Everyone is equal in death. In my opinion, the Clown is probably the most truthful character in the entire play.

I absolutely LOVE the dialogue in this scene, but I particularly enjoyed Hamlet's line: "Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth to dust, the dust is earth, of earth we make loam, and why of that loam whereto he was converted might they not stop a beer-barrel (5.1.176-179)? This line stood out to me mostly because it reminds me alot of the phrase "Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again." I'm not extremely religious, but the phrase is familiar to me, therefore I found that I warmed up immediately to this line. This feeling made me really listen to the words, and I understood what Hamlet was saying. I'm not sure if Shakespeare wrote that intentionally to resemble the common Christian phrase, but if he did, it would definitely be a way of getting his point across to the audience. Maybe, by modeling the line after a familiar phrase, Shakespeare knew that he would get the audience to listen to (if anything), a line that he believed was very important.