ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Then both Laertes and Hamlet are wounded by the poisoned blade, and Laertes dies. Hamlet, in his death throes, kills Claudius. Hamlet dies, leaving only his friend Horatio to explain the truth to the new king, Fortinbras, as he returns in victory from the Polish wars.

Detailed explanation-2: -Hamlet first cuts Claudius with his rapier, then forces him to drink from the poisoned cup. Each of Claudius’ “deaths” represents different things to Hamlet. One death represents the death of King Hamlet, and the other represents the death of Hamlet’s id. As soon as Gertrude dies, Hamlet is able to kill Claudius.

Detailed explanation-3: -Hamlet’s central characters are Hamlet himself, Claudius, Gertrude, Ophelia, Polonius, Laertes, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and Horatio. But only Horatio survives when the curtain falls at the end of Shakespeare’s play.

Detailed explanation-4: -Laertes is the son of Polonius and the brother of Ophelia. In the final scene, he mortally stabs Hamlet with a poison-tipped sword to avenge the deaths of his father and sister, for which he blamed Hamlet. While dying of the same poison, he implicates King Claudius.

Detailed explanation-5: -She wilfully disobeys Claudius by drinking the poisoned wine. She dies with cries of ‘the drink! the drink! I am poisoned’ (5.2. 264), and in so doing identifies Claudius as her killer.