Hamlet Summary

Hamlet is not divided into chapters but into 5 acts made up of 20 scenes. Here is the full act-and-scene breakdown of Hamlet:

Act 1

• 1.1 The ghost of the dead king appears to the guards and Horatio on the battlements of Elsinore
• 1.2 Claudius holds court; Hamlet mourns his father and resents his mother's hasty marriage
• 1.3 Laertes and Polonius warn Ophelia to stay away from Hamlet
• 1.4 Hamlet meets the Ghost on the ramparts
• 1.5 The Ghost reveals he was murdered by Claudius and demands revenge

Act 2

• 2.1 Polonius sends a spy after Laertes; Ophelia reports Hamlet's strange behavior
• 2.2 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are summoned to watch Hamlet; the players arrive and Hamlet plots "The Mousetrap"

Act 3

• 3.1 Hamlet delivers the "To be, or not to be" soliloquy and turns on Ophelia
• 3.2 The play-within-a-play catches Claudius's guilty conscience
• 3.3 Hamlet finds Claudius praying but spares him
• 3.4 Hamlet kills Polonius behind the curtain and confronts Gertrude

Act 4

• 4.1 Gertrude tells Claudius that Polonius is dead
• 4.2 Hamlet hides the body
• 4.3 Claudius sends Hamlet to England to be killed
• 4.4 Hamlet sees Fortinbras's army and resolves on action
• 4.5 A grief-stricken Ophelia goes mad; Laertes returns seeking revenge
• 4.6 Sailors bring news that Hamlet has returned to Denmark
• 4.7 Claudius and Laertes plan the poisoned duel; Gertrude reports Ophelia's drowning

Act 5

• 5.1 The gravediggers dig Ophelia's grave; Hamlet holds Yorick's skull; Ophelia is buried
• 5.2 The fencing match ends in the deaths of Gertrude, Laertes, Claudius, and Hamlet, and Fortinbras arrives to take the throne

This summary of Hamlet by William Shakespeare begins at the castle of Elsinore, where the guards and Hamlet's friend Horatio witness the ghost of the recently dead King Hamlet. The prince is already in mourning, disgusted that his mother, Gertrude, has married his uncle Claudius barely two months after the king's death, and that Claudius now wears the crown.

When Hamlet meets the Ghost, it tells him a terrible secret: the old king did not die naturally but was poisoned by Claudius, who craved the throne and the queen. The Ghost commands Hamlet to avenge the murder but to leave Gertrude to heaven. Shaken, Hamlet vows revenge yet cannot bring himself to act. To buy time and hide his intentions, he decides to put on an "antic disposition" and behave as if he has lost his mind.

Hamlet's apparent madness alarms the court. Claudius and the meddling counselor Polonius try to discover its cause, using Hamlet's former love, Ophelia, and his old schoolfriends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as spies. In his most famous soliloquy, "To be, or not to be," Hamlet weighs life against death and the fear of what may come after. Still unsure whether the Ghost told the truth, he seizes on a plan when a troupe of actors arrives.

Hamlet has the players stage "The Mousetrap," a drama that mirrors his father's murder, so he can watch Claudius's reaction. When the on-stage poisoning unfolds, Claudius panics and flees, confirming his guilt. Soon after, Hamlet comes upon Claudius alone at prayer and could kill him, but he hesitates, unwilling to send his uncle's soul to heaven, and lets the moment pass.

In his mother's chamber, Hamlet confronts Gertrude and, hearing a noise behind a tapestry, stabs blindly, killing the hidden Polonius by mistake. The murder sets the tragedy racing forward. Claudius ships Hamlet off to England with secret orders for his execution, but Hamlet escapes and returns to Denmark. Meanwhile, Ophelia, crushed by Hamlet's rejection and her father's death, loses her sanity and drowns.

Ophelia's brother, Laertes, storms home determined to avenge his father and sister. Claudius steers that rage toward Hamlet, arranging a fencing match in which Laertes will use a poisoned blade, with a cup of poisoned wine held in reserve. This Hamlet book summary builds to a court gathered for what looks like friendly sport but is really a trap.

Throughout the play, Shakespeare keeps circling questions of action and delay, appearance and reality, and the certainty of death, symbolized in the graveyard scene where Hamlet contemplates the skull of the jester Yorick. By the final act, nearly every choice has locked the characters into a collision that none of them can escape.

Hamlet ends in the famous duel scene, which turns into a bloodbath. During the fencing match, Laertes wounds Hamlet with the poisoned sword, but in the scuffle they exchange weapons and Hamlet wounds Laertes with the same blade, so both men are now doomed.

Gertrude, unaware of the plot, drinks from the poisoned cup Claudius had prepared for Hamlet and collapses, crying out that she has been poisoned. The dying Laertes confesses the whole scheme and names Claudius as the mastermind. Enraged, Hamlet finally kills Claudius, stabbing him with the poisoned sword and forcing him to drink the rest of the poisoned wine.

As the poison takes hold, Hamlet stops his friend Horatio from drinking so that someone will live to tell the true story. He gives his dying voice to Prince Fortinbras of Norway as the next king and speaks his last line, "The rest is silence." Fortinbras arrives to find the Danish royal family dead and orders Hamlet to be carried off with a soldier's honors. The conclusion of this summary of Hamlet is bleak: revenge is achieved, but at the cost of nearly every major character's life, and the throne passes out of the family entirely.

Here are some of the most famous quotes from Hamlet by William Shakespeare. These verbatim lines capture the play's themes of doubt, death, madness, and hidden villainy:

"To be, or not to be, that is the question."

"Though this be madness, yet there is method in't."

"This above all: to thine own self be true."

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

"Frailty, thy name is woman!"

"That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain."

These Hamlet quotes are among the most quoted lines in all of English literature, which is why the play remains a cornerstone of theatre and classrooms alike.