Abstract
The excerpt that we will analyse is the end of Act III scene 1 of Hamlet by Shakespeare. The passage that we will deal with is just after the famous Hamlet's soliloquy "to be or not to be" which is a key moment in the play. Actually, this soliloquy and then the dialogue between Hamlet and Ophelia are meaningful because they reveal the alleged thoughts of Hamlet concerning the theme of the moral legitimacy of suicide, the verisimilitude between sleep and death, the uncertainty of the afterlife and particularly Hamlet discloses the state of his mind by pretending madness.
All this passage is closely related to our excerpt because Claudius and Polonius were eavesdropping Hamlet and Ophelia and after the exit of Hamlet, they discuss Hamlet's behaviour and how they have to react to it. So we can wonder to what extent this scene through a game between appearances and reality initiates ambivalence between suspicion and attempt to discover the truth about Hamlet's madness. To answer this question we will see the subject in three parts: first we will analyse the opposition between appearances and reality in this scene and then we will see how the tragic dimension is expressed there through omens and the danger Hamlet now represents; And finally we will talk about the game of eavesdropping and interpreting which conduct the characters to their fall.
