Dec 23, 2009

Hamlet | Act II, Scene 1 Summary and Analysis

New Character
Reynaldo: Polonius’s servant

Summary
Polonius sends Reynaldo to Paris to spy on Laertes, instructing him to use delicate indirection to learn of Laertes’s behavior from other “Danskers [who] are in Paris” (7). After Reynaldo leaves, Ophelia enters, distressed, and tells her father that Hamlet has just approached her with “his doublet all unbraced; / No hat upon his head; his stockings fouled, / Ungartered, and down-gyved to his ankle” (75-77). She says he “held [her] hard” (84) by the wrist, studied her...