Hamlet Act II

This past week in AP Lit class we analyzed the second Act of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Act II begins with Polonius telling his man Reynaldo to go spy on Laertes in Paris, but he Polonius tells Reynaldo not to the typical spy thing, he says to go around and make statements about Laertes and see if the statements are true. Scene I in Act II is the first time the themes of spying and seeming join together as a basis of characterization. At the end of scene I Ophelia comes running onto set frightened and confused because, Hamlet has just come to her into a state of madness. She claims that he came to her and held her tightly and then resistibly left her. To Polonius this poses and opportunity to use Ophelia to get money. Scene ii begins with the king and queen acting royal in their court, they hire two of Hamlet’s “good” friends to come and spy on him and find out why he has been acting “peculiar.” Afterwards Polonius comes into the palace to tell Claudius and Gertrude that the reason that Hamlet has been acting “mad” is because he is madly in love Ophelia and has been upset that she hasn’t been returning her affections to him after her talk with her father. So Polonius and the royal family plan to use Ophelia as bate to see what is truly wrong with Hamlet, so in other words they are using Ophelia to spy on Hamlet. Hamlet walks into the room and then Polonius bombards Hamlet with questions and tries to make conversation, but Hamlet completely outsmarts him and makes witty remarks. Afterward Guildenstern and Rosencrantz come back onto set and Hamlet makes it known that he knows that his parents are spying.

This Act is all about deception and spying. Polonius is the major instigator that starts the whole spying fad in the play. Polonius has no limits he is ultimately willing to engage in anything to find the truth. As seen in scene I Polonius is willing to spread false rumors about his family in order to find out the truth. One of the key lines in this Act is “With windlasses and with assays of bias” this also brings about the fact the Polonius plays games to manipulate the situation to what fits himself best. In Shakespeare’s mind Polonius is a representative of people they are self-interested and some of them aren’t very bright to realize that other people are also self-interested.  It seems that Shakespeare is blurring the lines between theatricality and reality. He insists that we see his play as occurring at the same time in the fantasy of Hamlet’s kingdom and the actual world. There is a distinct difference in each characters vision of the world even though Hamlet is “crazy” he as more touch with what is happening outside in the world than any of the other characters. He sees the difference between reality and fantasy we can see this in how Shakespeare changes his dialogue from prose to verse and the way he talks with his friends.