ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -So when Hamlet tells us “the play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king, ” he’s saying that Claudius ’ guilty conscience will shine through when he’s watching the play that Hamlet’s arranged. It’s literal. He wants to catch Claudius red-handed-or red-faced, so to speak.

Detailed explanation-2: -What does ‘the play’s the thing’ mean? “The play’s the thing” appears in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It means that Hamlet is using the play as an instrument to touch the conscience of Claudius. He wants to make him aware of the fact that he knows who actually killed his father.

Detailed explanation-3: -Act 2 Scene 2-Claudius becomes suspicious Hamlet The play’s the thing/Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.

Detailed explanation-4: -“To thine own self be true.” “Though this be madness, yet there is method in ‘t.” “Brevity is the soul of wit.” “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Detailed explanation-5: -Hamlet’s conscience opposes resolution with thought, especially the thought of ‘something after death’. The morality opposition between Wrath and Conscience foreshadows the conflict played out in Hamlet’s soliloquies.