ABSTRACT
The pivotal scene in Shakespeare's Hamlet is the play-within-a-play, `The Murder of Gonzago'. Up until this point the tension between the protagonists has been mounting but has not spilt over into action. Hamlet's father has died, his ghost has returned to say he was killed by his brother, Claudius, who has then married the Queen and Hamlet's mother, Gertrude, thereby denying Hamlet the right to succeed as king. The chance arrival of a group of actors gives Hamlet the opportunity to set a trap to `catch the conscience of the king'. He gets the players to act a play which reproduces the murder of a king by his brother, followed by the seduction of the queen. Hamlet's plan works, but he unleashes in himself and others more than he bargained for. After watching `The Murder of Gonzago', all the characters are moved to express their emotions in action and thus the tragedy unfolds. Hamlet, less bothered about the death of his father and missing out on the crown, now confronts his mother with the issue that has really been bothering him: his mother's sexual relationship to his uncle; his unconscious intention had been to `catch the conscience' of the queen. This leads to the murder of the king's Lord Chamberlain, Polonius, whose daughter then goes mad and commits suicide. Her brother wants to kill Hamlet, and Claudius himself now knows how dangerous Hamlet is and sets about to plot his death. None of this works out as expected which results in the deaths of all the leading protagonists: Hamlet, Gertrude and Claudius.
