Peripeteia

Question 1
Checklist

Briefly situate the scene in the context of the play, considering key themes, character development and dramatic effect on the audience.

Make at least three AO1 points about what is really going on in a scene, what makes it dramatically compelling & the dramatic effects on the audience.

Start each paragraph with an AO1 point.

Find at least three pieces of AO2 evidence for each paragraph.

Inspect at least some of this evidence closely. E.g. drawing two points from one quote.
Ideally range across both the text and different techniques, e.g. start & end of extract, metaphors and single words, imagery and tone.

Ensure you refer to figurative imagery and/or images.

Make sure you refer to Shakespeare at least three times.

Example 1

By placing this scene immediately after Polonius has engaged Reynaldo to spy on his son, Laertes, Shakespeare makes it obvious to the audience, in a way that it is not to the onstage audience of the court, that something similar is going on here; Claudius is actually ordering Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on Hamlet, but he doesn’t say this directly. In other words, this scene is fundamentally a sham. Claudius’ apparent fatherly motivations and the concern he expresses for Hamlet’s wellbeing are fake, part of a wider pattern in the play of deception as a manifestation of corruption in Elsinore. The extent to which other characters understand what is really going on is hard to establish under the veneer of polite concern for Hamlet.