Hamlet - Act 3, Scene 1

In Hamlet, the characters that portray him in the videos are different from the individual text. In the text, Hamlet is alone in a room, he’s speaking of whether to commit suicide or not. He’s troubled with many problems and anger towards his family, yet no one knows the real reason why he’s gone mad. Hamlet has not been himself lately that everyone has been figuring out what is the problem with him. As Hamlet begins to talk to himself, Ophelia’s father, Polonius, and Hamlet’s uncle, King Claudius, spy on Hamlet. Polonius spoken to King Claudius telling him its love that drives him mad. He has spied on Hamlet earlier in the play. “You know sometimes he walks four hours together Here in the lobby.” (2:2;173-174) They ask Ophelia to speak with Hamlet and told her to give back the gifts that he has given her. Polonius and King Claudius wait for Ophelia to talk to Hamlet to see if it’s love that drives Hamlet into madness. In the videos, they’re similar by Hamlet speaking the same text in the book, yet they all have different expressions and emotions. Hamlet is portrayed in many ways by the views of others.In the first video, Hamlet is in front of a mirror, speaking softly and calmly to himself. He’s the only one there with a mirror and a grand staircase behind him. As he’s standing still and speaking, Polonius and King Claudius are in the background behind the staircase. Hamlet has an object in his hands which looks like a dagger, as he pulls it out, a flashback of his father appears for a second then back to Hamlet, staring at the mirror and pointing the dagger towards it. As he finishes speaking, Ophelia walks in and he turns to greet her.

In the second video, there is a room of people in a white room; one man is lying down, while another is sitting on a chair with a microphone. The man sitting on the chair is speaking the lines of Hamlet. He speaks them with hesitation after speaking the first line, “to be or not to be --- that is the question.” (3:1;64) As he’s speaking, random people are in a line watching him speak while one by one they come and kiss the man lying down. He seems to be dead, for he is very pale and laying very still with his eyes closed. Everyone in line is serious looking, and looking straight forward. He later on speaks more rapidly as everyone is kissing the man lying down. As he says, “to grunt and sweat under a weary life,” (3:1;85) the video goes close up to the man’s face, but only showing part of his face and his eye. In the end of the video, as a girl kisses the man lying down and it changes to another scene of another man lying down and a girl kissing him. However, the man’s eyes open without saying a word.

In the third video, it’s black and white and Hamlet is on a high cliff looking down at a noisy ocean. He begins to speak; the music gets loud and shows only the image of his eyes. Hamlet is leaning on a rock while looking down; he has a knife or a dagger in his hands. While he’s speaking, he’s only looking toward the ocean, and as he says, “and what makes us rather we know not of?” (3:1;90) he drops the dagger in the ocean. However in the first video, he has the dagger, but doesn’t drop it in any way and in the second video, there was no dagger. In this video, Hamlet didn’t speak the last lines in the text, “--- Soft you now, The fair Ophelia. --- Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remembered.” (3:1;96-98) He has created his own words and ended saying, “And lose the name of action.” (3:1;96) In the text, he’s in a room and Ophelia comes in and speaks with him right after his soliloquy while Polonius and King Claudius are eavesdropping. At the end of this video, he walks off into the background of fog, where he disappears.

In conclusion, the videos portrayed the text in their own versions. In the first video, it’s more similar to the text than the other videos. Hamlet is in a room, by himself, speaking his soliloquy. In the second video, the man speaking was not Hamlet, yet it was as if he were speaking for Hamlet. He wasn’t Hamlet, yet the man lying down and the man that appeared at the end of the video was him. In the third video, the scene didn’t match with the text. The man was outside on a cliff looking down at the ocean, instead of being inside because the next part of the scene wouldn’t make sense in the text. The best version was the third video, for it portrayed the test more than the other videos. It had most accurate speaking and relations with the text.