kinds of corruption

Option One: Hamlet Act 1 (something rotten)

In Many of the poems we’ve studied so far, the theme of corruption plays a major role in the action of the poem. For instance, in Sophocles’s verse drama Oedipus Rex, Oedipus has polluted his city of Thebes by unknowingly breaking the incest taboo. Act 1 of Hamlet introduces several different kinds of corruption, as reflected in the guard Marcellus’s famous line, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” (Hamlet Act 1 Scene 4).

Write a well developed, analytic essay that addresses THREE different kinds of corruption introduced in the first act of Hamlet. For each kind of corruption, identify the source of the corruption, the victim of the corruption, and whether the text suggests a kind of remedy to the corruption. For each kind of corruption, BRIEFLY comment on how that corruption in Hamlet resonates with at least one earlier piece of literature we’ve already studied.

Option Two: Ophelia, Laertes, and Polonius

Review Act 1 Scene 3 (pages 1817-1820). In this scene, we see Ophelia being warned about Hamlet by her brother Laertes and her father Polonius (who also gives Laertes a whole lot of advice about how to conduct himself as he goes abroad). What is Laertes’s advice to Ophelia? What is Polonius’s advice to Ophelia? Do brother and father seem to have Ophelia’s best interests in mind, or merely their own, and why?

For up to 2 points of extra credit, write an additional page in which you consider Polonius’s advice to Laertes in this same scene. What is Polonius’s tone in this speech (lines 57-82)? Does he care about Laertes, or about hearing himself talk, and why ? Finally, how does Laertes’s advice to Polonius differ from his advice to Ophelia, and why?