Hamlet: Act 1, Scene 1 – analysis

Benchmark points

• Opens with professional watchmen — ordinary voices, nocturnal tension, political unease

• Builds tone of fear and doubt — challenges of seeing, hearing, proving

• Foregrounds theme of surveillance and state insecurity — Denmark on edge

• Delays princely authority — Hamlet and Claudius enter a world already unstable

• Multiple witnesses — public, not private, confirmation of the Ghost

Suggested answer
Shakespeare begins with watchmen because the play’s crisis belongs first to the state, not the court. Barnardo, Francisco and Marcellus give us ordinary eyes and ears — clipped challenge, repeated passwords, the cold and the dark — which set a cautious, unsettled tone. The opening is about proof: who goes there, what is seen, what can be sworn. That habit of testing the truth runs through the play. By starting below stairs he also establishes the theme of surveillance — watchmen, countersigns, later spies — and shows Denmark on alert after a change of king. The Ghost appears to the watchmen, then to Horatio, so that when Hamlet enters he meets a public omen, not a private fancy. Princes arrive late to anxiety the commonwealth already feels. The result is a world of doubt and duty where authority must answer what ordinary people have witnessed.

Benchmark points

• Abrupt challenge “Who’s there?” – authority instantly in question

• Short lines, interruptions, shared lines – broken rhythm suggests nerves

• Repetition and countersign – procedures of the watchmen stress threat

• Visuals of darkness and cold – limited sight, heightened listening

• The Ghost’s silence and exit on the cock – hints at rules beyond human control

Suggested answer
Shakespeare engineers uncertainty from the first line – a challenge without a name – so power and safety feel unsettled. The watchmen swap clipped calls and countersigns, their short broken lines suggesting bodies on edge. Repetitions and corrections check identity and memory, and the shared verse gives a stuttering pulse to the night. Staging helps: darkness narrows sight so sound leads action, which makes every footfall or sudden entrance feel risky. When the Ghost appears he withholds speech and vanishes at the cock’s crow, behaviour that seems to obey laws the men cannot grasp. Silence from an armoured figure is more troubling than any roar, and the repeated failure to speak to him keeps the fear unresolved. By the time Horatio concedes belief, the audience has already felt the strain of not knowing what is seen or sworn – a tone of wary proof-seeking the play will keep.

Benchmark points

• Sceptic turned witness – tests the event, then confirms it

• Scholar’s language – names Julius Caesar prodigies, frames omen as public

• Stabilises tone – calm sentences next to the watchmen’s clipped calls

• Plans to tell Hamlet – carries proof to the prince

• Credibility – multiple witnesses plus a learned one

Suggested answer
Horatio enters as a sceptic and leaves as a witness, which is exactly what the audience needs. His first task is to doubt – to explain the fear away as fancy – and then to test it by staying to watch. When he sees the Ghost he gives the sight a public and learned frame, recalling prodigies before Caesar’s fall, so the apparition reads as a state omen rather than a private quirk. His measured grammar and classical references steady the tone beside the watchmen’s nervous exchanges. Crucially he decides to tell Hamlet, turning a strange night into political news that must reach the prince. Because the Ghost has been seen by more than one man – including a scholar who doubted first – the audience can trust the reality of the event. Horatio’s change of mind becomes the play’s first model of honest judgement.

Benchmark points

• War readiness – lists of shifts, ordnance, shipwrights, pressed labour

• History of old King Hamlet vs old Fortinbras – legal forfeiture

• Young Fortinbras testing boundaries – appetite for lost lands

• State anxiety felt by workers and watchmen – not just princes

• Court will inherit a crisis already moving

Suggested answer
Before the court speaks, the play sketches a country bracing for trouble. The watchmen’s talk reveals a kingdom on a war footing – hammered armour, new brass, busy shipwrights, impressed labour – so the sense of alarm is economic as well as military. Horatio supplies the legal backstory: old King Hamlet defeated old Fortinbras and took lands by a formal compact. The rumour now is that young Fortinbras gathers men to test that forfeiture. This places Denmark between memory and present appetite, and it matters that we hear it from workers on a wall rather than councillors at a desk. The state’s fear lives in the night air, not just in policy papers. By the time we reach the court, we already understand that Claudius inherits movement, not stability, and that the Ghost’s appearance belongs to a wider political unease.

Benchmark points

• Silence forces human interpretation – the observers fill gaps with history and fear

• Appears armed – connects to war and unsettled succession

• Withdraws at the cock – time and rule beyond human command

• Refuses speech to the watchmen – reserves meaning for later

• Public apparition – witnessed by several, not a private fancy

Suggested answer
The Ghost’s silence is not a lack but a tactic: it makes the men interpret. Because he will not speak to the watchmen, they supply meanings – omen, memory, warning – and draw on Horatio’s history to give it weight. The armour ties him to war and unsettled succession, so the state’s anxieties and the supernatural sign feel fused. His exit at the cock’s crow suggests a rule beyond human command, a timing that places his will under a different law. Most important is that he is public – seen by several men over more than one night – so the problem is not whether a prince fancies a shape but what the country is to do with a witnessed sign. Silence here keeps dread active and reserves speech for the moment it will matter most – when Hamlet can be charged to remember and act.