Hamlet: complete summary
ACT 1 The play begins at night outside a castle in Denmark. Some guards and Hamlet’s friend, Horatio, see a ghost that looks like the dead King Hamlet, Prince Hamlet’s father. The ghost doesn’t speak, so they decide to tell Hamlet. At the castle, King Claudius (Hamlet’s uncle) has taken the throne and married Hamlet’s mother, Queen Gertrude. Hamlet is upset by this. Claudius tells Hamlet to stop mourning his father. Hamlet feels betrayed by his mother and disgusted with his uncle. Later, the ghost appears to Hamlet and tells him that Claudius murdered him to take the throne. The ghost asks Hamlet to get revenge. Hamlet agrees but pretends to be mad (insane) to investigate without raising suspicion. ACT 2 Polonius, the king’s advisor, sends a spy to check on his son Laertes in France. He also believes Hamlet has gone mad because he loves Polonius’s daughter, Ophelia. Claudius sends Hamlet’s old friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to spy on him. Hamlet knows they were sent to s...