Hello Essay Forum!
I'm having quite a difficult time answering my essay question.
"Novels and plays often include scenes of weddings, funerals, parties and other social occasions. Such a scene may reveal the values of the characters and the society in which they live. In Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, select a scene and discuss the contribution the scene makes to the meaning of the work as a whole"
I have chosen Claudius and Gertrudes wedding however I am having a hard time finding quotes that relate directly to this subject. I also need to argue that it is an important scene but with lack of quotes it's getting more and more difficult to to answer this. Will anyone be willing to help me?
One reason it can be difficult to find quotes relating directly to their wedding is because the wedding happened soon after the funeral which was before the beginning of the play. But if you really search, you can find some quotes.
Ham. "She married. O, most wicked speed, to post / With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!" (Act I. scene ii. 156-157)
Soon after Hamlet says this, he and Horatio have a conversation about the real reason he (Horatio) is there.
Ham. I am very glad to see you. Good even, sir -- / But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?
Hor. A traunt disposition, good my lord.
Ham. I would not hear your enemy say so, / Nor shall you do my ear that violence / To make it truster of your own report / Against yourself. I know you are no traunt. / But what is your affair in Elsinore? / We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.
Hor. My lord, I came to see your father's funeral.
Ham. I prithee do not mock me, fellow-student, / I think it was to see my mother's wedding.
Hor. Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon.
Ham. Thrift, thrift, Horatio. The funeral baked meats / Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables. (Act I. scene ii. 167-181)
Those are the quotes I could find right now, but I know that there are some quotes said by the Ghost, however, most will be by either Hamlet or the King.
