Hamlet Group

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swimchick4193
swimchick4193
Student
High School - 9th Grade

Why did Shakespeare make "the rest is silence" Hamlet's final words?

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Posted by swimchick4193 on Thursday May 29, 2008 at 3:01 PM and tagged with act 5, hamlet, hamlets dialogue.

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  1. luannw Teacher
    High School - 11th Grade

    eNotes Editor

    The obvious answer is probably the right one here - it was the end of the play.  Hamlet dies with these words.  For nearly the entire play, Hamlet wrestled with the words of his father's ghost asking him to get revenge against Claudius for having killed King Hamlet.  Now, Claudius is also dead by Hamlet's hand.  Gertrude, Hamlet's mother, and the one whom the ghost cautioned Hamlet to leave alone, is also dead.  There is no one left to carry on the family line, so there is definitely silence.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/hamlet

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    Posted by luannw on Thursday May 29, 2008 at 4:39 PM

  2. pmiranda2857
    pmiranda2857 Teacher
    High School - 10th Grade

    eNotes Editor

    "O! I die, Horatio;
    The potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit:
    I cannot live to hear the news from England,
    But I do prophesy the election lights
    On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice;
    So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less,
    Which have solicited—The rest is silence".

    The reference you make is part of Hamlet's final speech in which he reflects on the fact that he is dying, and will not be apart of anything more in life. The rest of his life, is silence.  His life ended, too soon, leaving a wide gap of silence where years of living should be. 

    Hamlet realizes he needs to rely on Horatio to tell the story of his uncle, his father, his mother, the whole plot, how Ophelia died, and finally how Hamlet's promising life was cut short.

    Sources:
    http://www.absoluteshakespeare.com/plays-hamlet
    http://www.enotes.com/hamlet-act-v-summary-analysis

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    Posted by pmiranda2857 on Thursday May 29, 2008 at 4:42 PM


  3. robertwilliam

    eNotes Editor

    Hamlet, who speaks the majority of the lines in the play, is about to die, and stop speaking for ever. He has avenged his father's murder, been caught with the posioned rapier, and, as he has just reflected to Horatio, is about to pass the crown of Denmark (he is, at this moment, effectively the only candidate to be king!) to Fortinbras. There will be no familial succession. In that sense, the rest is silence.

    Yet there is (as with so many other things in Hamlet) a meta-theatrical element. Hamlet has just asked Horatio not to commit suicide (Horatio's lines about being 'more the antic Roman than a dane' refer to his desire to kill himself) but to stay alive and to 'report' Hamlet's story to the public. Hamlet, effectively, needs Horatio to write the history books for him.

    Hamlet cannot tell his own story: he is about to die, and, of course, there can only be silence from him. But when the play - itself a version of Hamlet's story - comes to an end, Horatio's project, even after the curtain has come down, is to re-tell that same story.

    So, perhaps, as we come to the end of a performance of Hamlet in the theatre, we confront Hamlet: yet, in an odd sort of way, we simply come to the end of a cycle. There is silence at the end of each performance - but every time the play itself is performed, Hamlet's dying wish for his story to be told 'aright' is fulfilled.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/hamlet

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    Posted by robertwilliam on Saturday August 16, 2008 at 5:29 PM


  4. frizzyperm Teacher
    College - Senior

    The Rest is Silence.

    In Shakespeare's day, most people unquestioningly believed in heaven (and hell). But Hamlet is a child of the new, philosophical Renaissance, his final line questions the old certainty of Heaven.

    Hamlet has talked of death throughout the play and stared into the eyes of a freshly-unearthed, dead skull, looking for meaning. Now he is dying and he says, 'the rest is silence'

    There is a double-wordplay on 'rest' :-

    1) Rest could mean "...the remainder..." as in "...we watched the rest of the movie..." or "...the dog had the rest of the meatloaf...". So Hamlet's saying, "You will hear no more words from me for the rest of time, 'cos I'll be dead."

    2) Or 'rest' could mean sleep... eternal rest, the sleep of death. He asked himself a question in the 'to be or not to be' speech, "For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come?". Now he can see over Death's shoulder and he has his answer. What dreams may come? None, the rest is silence. There is no heaven. There is no hell. No 'undiscovered country'. There is just the silence of the grave. Scary Stuff!

    (Plus, theatrically speaking, it is the end of the play, there is a little 'wrapping up' afterwards by the minor characters, but basically it is the final line, 'The End'. 'The Rest is Silence, Thanks For Coming, and Goodnight.)

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    Posted by frizzyperm on Tuesday August 19, 2008 at 6:24 AM

  5. tanu
    tanu

    alveoli and bronchioles

    alveoli and veins

    cartilage and muscle

    veins and bronchioles

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    Posted by tanu on Sunday September 7, 2008 at 2:40 AM