Hamlet - Characters: Hamlet

English
GCSE
8 questions
~16 mins
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A worksheet analysing Hamlet's character through key passages and grammatical features.

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Hamlet - Characters: Hamlet

Subject: EnglishGrade: GCSE
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Grade GCSE
A

Hamlet's Soliloquy: To be, or not to be

To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscover'd country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pitch and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.
1.
Identify the literary device used in the phrase 'the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune'.
[2 marks]
2.
What is the main theme explored in this soliloquy?
[2 marks]
3.
Explain the significance of the phrase 'To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end'.
[4 marks]
4.
Which rhetorical question emphasizes Hamlet's uncertainty about what happens after death?
[2 marks]
5.
Identify an example of alliteration in the extract.
[2 marks]
6.
Describe the tone of Hamlet in this passage.
[2 marks]
7.
What is the effect of the caesura in the line 'To be, or not to be: that is the question:'?
[2 marks]
8.
How does Shakespeare use imagery to depict death in this passage?
[3 marks]

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Details

Created
12/31/2025
Updated
12/31/2025
Type
worksheet