Hamlet #1

               In Act 1, Scene 2 the audience is introduced to the mess that is Hamlet’s family. King Hamlet has mysteriously dropped dead. The king’s brother has, within weeks, married the late king’s wife, Prince Hamlet’s mother, so now Hamlet has lost his father and has a new father in his uncle, and barely a month has passed. Needless to say, Hamlet is not pleased. In speaking of his mother, he says, “O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason/ Would have mourned longer!” (I.ii.154-5). Even an animal that does not have the ability to properly think through a situation would have showed more remorse than his dear mother did. Hamlet is deeply angry with his mother for betraying his father in this way. Hamlet is still crying and dressing in black, and his mother is jumping into another marriage: “most wicked speed, to post/ With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!” (I.ii.161-2). Not only has his mother remarried inappropriately quickly, but also she has married the brother of her former husband. This is deeply disturbing to Hamlet as it would be to any son. Hamlet is troubled, but he makes a prediction at the end of this soliloquy that could be very foreboding: “It is not, nor it cannot come to good” (I.ii.163).