Hamlet Act 3, Scene 4

1. Summary – Hamlet goes to his mom’s bedroom to talk to her. Polonius is spying on Hamlet from behind an arras. During her conversation with Hamlet, the queen yells out “Help!” and Polonius yells out in response. Hamlet then kills Polonius. Hamlet makes his mom feel bad about marrying her dead husband’s brother and gets her to agree to help him by sleeping with Claudius one more time. During the conversation, Hamlet sees the ghost but his mom does not. Hamlet tells her that he is not actually insane. Hamlet takes Polonius body from the room.

2. Significance – This scene is important because it marks a turn in the tide against Claudius as Hamlet’s mom agrees to help her son and Polonius, Claudius’s faithful servant, is killed.

3. Quotations – Upon hearing Polonius yelling out from behind the arras, Hamlet says “How now? A rat? Dead for a ducat, dead!” He means two things by rat. One is that he is acting like there is actually a rat behind the curtain so that killing Polonius only seems like an honest attempt to kill a rat, not an intentional act to get rid of Claudius’s troublesome servant who is spying on Hamlet. This goes along with his act of insanity because if he is insane then he easily could think that a rat is speaking. Also, Hamlet is calling Polonius a rat for spying on him as he talks with his mother. I like that Hamlet uses “rat” to keep from being thought of as guilty and to call Polonius a mean name.

During her conversation with Hamlet, the queen says “Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.” Hamlet responds with “Mother, you have my father much offended.” I like this comeback because it sticks the guilt and blame on the queen while she was trying to put them on Hamlet. Hamlet also makes it clear that he does not consider Claudius his father because his mother refers to Claudius in her statement as being Hamlet’s dad while Hamlet refers to his actual father as his father in his statement to his moth