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What happens in Act 4, Scene 5 of Hamlet?
Ophelia goes mad over the death of Polonius, and Laertes returns from France, looking for revenge. Claudius convinces Laertes to seek revenge on Hamlet rather than on him.
What happens in Act 4, Scene 6 of Hamlet?
Horatio receives a message that Hamlet’s ship was attacked by pirates and that Hamlet has quietly returned to Denmark.
Read our Summary & Analysis of Act 4, Scenes 5 & 6. (2-minute read)
Are Scenes 5 and 6 of Act 4 of Hamlet important?
Scene 5 of Act 4 is significant because we see the impact of the rapid mental unraveling of Ophelia who is overcome by grief over her father. The fact that this grief drives Ophelia to madness reveals her overwhelming feelings of hopelessness and the power that the men in Ophelia’s life wield over her. Most of the key quotes from Scene 5 are about Ophelia’s precarious mental state and how other characters react to it.
Read explanations of 6 quotes from Act 4, Scene 5 focusing on Ophelia.
Scene 5 is also important for showing us that Laertes has become a political threat to Claudius, and how Claudius cleverly plans to turn this threat to his advantage by helping Laertes get his revenge on Hamlet. While the political intrigues of the Danish royal court in this scene may seem relatively minor to audiences now, it’s worth remembering that Hamlet appeared during a time of political change in England, as years of concern over the decline of Queen Elizabeth and the House of Tutor were giving way to the rule of the House of Stuart under King James. Shakespeare’s contemporaries believed that the health of a kingdom relied upon the well-being of its royal family—as is discussed in the (last) theme of the Ill Health of the State—so this seemingly minor subplot would have been recognized and appreciated by Shakespeare’s audience.
Read about the connection of Hamlet to the decline of Queen Elizabeth. (2-minute read)
Scene 6 is brief and less significant, but it does serve to advance the plot (and bring Hamlet back to Denmark) in an unusual way. It mainly functions to deliver the deus ex machina (which literally means “ghost from the machine,” and in literary terms means an improbable or unexpected device or character introduced to resolve a situation) of the pirate attack leading to Hamlet’s return to Denmark.
