Act IV

I read Act IV today. It was so good! Because my character died in the previous act, I will just summarize my favorite parts of the act. First of all, Ophelia goes nuts and says hilarious but somewhat true statements. Then, she jumps into a swamp (singing), gets tangled in the weeds (still singing), sinks, then floats up again, sings some more, and then sinks once more and drowns. I don't know why, but i found that hilarious! Laertes and the king plot a plan to kill hamlet and make it look like an accident, have laertes duel hamlet with a poison-tipped sword, and have a goblet of poison ready for hamlet to drink and have Laertes become king. Meanwhile, hamlet was sent to england but was stopped and turned around (and taken prisoner) by these soldiers who are going to meet with the king to have their promise of marching across the king's land fulfilled. Hamlet writes letters to a bunch of people saying whats going on and, in one of them, tries to set up a meeting with the king and himself (alone, or naked) so that he can kill him. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are still on their way to england, and probably won't come back. The queen is distraught but emotionally stable. She, i think, is either completely oblivious to all of the plans that have been set in motion or knows all of them and is playing naiive to protect her innocence in the matter. The whole act was a nice set up for Shakespeare to tear it all down, have everyone kill each other, and give the reader an overdose of irony.