Hamletguide.com | Hamlet's Characters: Minor Characters

Horatio:

Hamlet's loyal friend and confidante. He is a scholar and philosopher, as well as the first character to speak to the Ghost. He is the only person on whom Hamlet can rely in times of adversity. At the end of the play, Hamlet gives him the responsibility to "report me and my cause aright /To the unsatisfied."

Wikipedia writes:

Horatio is a character from William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. A friend of Prince Hamlet from Wittenberg University, Horatio's origins are unknown, though he is evidently poor, ^[2] and was present on the battlefield when Hamlet's father defeated 'the ambitious Norway'.^[3] Horatio is evidently not directly involved in the intrigue at the Danish court; thus, he makes a good foil or sounding board for Hamlet. He is often not identified as any specific court position, but simply as "friend to Hamlet".

Sparknotes writes:

Hamlet’s close friend, who studied with the prince at the university in Wittenberg. Horatio is loyal and helpful to Hamlet throughout the play. After Hamlet’s death, Horatio remains alive to tell Hamlet’s story.

The hot-headed son of Polonius and brother of Ophelia. He is a man of action and represents a distinct contrast to Hamlet. He orders Ophelia not to reciprocate Hamlet's love. Near the end of the play, he challenges Hamlet to a duel to avenge the deaths of his father and sister. He willingly conspires with Claudius and uses a poisoned foil to ensure Hamlet's death. In the end, he confesses all to Hamlet before both men die.

In the first Act, Laertes is seen warning Ophelia against Hamlet's romantic pursuit of her, saying he will soon lose his desire for her, and that it is not his choice, but the king's as to whom he will marry. Before Laertes returns to France (he had returned to attend the coronation of King Claudius,) his father, Polonius, gives him advice to behave himself in France.

During Laertes's absence, Hamlet kills Polonius in Gertrude's parlor. Laertes, informed of his father's death, returns to Denmark, and leads a mob to storm and take the castle. Laertes confronts the King, thinking he was responsible for Polonius' death. The King explains to him who the real killer was, and incites Laertes to kill Hamlet and avenge Polonius' death.

When Ophelia appears in her mad condition, Laertes laments, saying that if she had her wits she could not persuade him more to revenge. Later, Laertes is informed of her death. She had climbed into a willow tree that hung over a brook, and then fell into the water when a branch broke. Too insane to save herself, she drowned. His sister's death strengthens Laertes's resolve to kill Hamlet. At her funeral, Laertes asks why the normal Christian burial ceremony is not being carried out for his sister, and rebukes the priest for questioning her innocence. He leaps into her grave and begs the attendants to bury him with her, only to have Hamlet suddenly leap in with him. The two have to be held back in order to avoid a fight.

In the next scene, King Claudius arranges a fencing match between Hamlet and Laertes. Laertes uses his sharp, poisoned sword instead of a bated (dull) sword. The King provides a poisoned drink as a backup measure. Before the match begins, Hamlet apologises publicly to Laertes for the wrongs he has dealt him. Laertes accepts the apology, so he says, but he proceeds with the scheme to kill Hamlet. Hamlet is eventually wounded with the poisoned sword. Then, in a scuffle, the swords are switched. Hamlet wounds Laertes with his own poisoned blade, and Laertes then falls as well. As he lies dying, Laertes confesses to the treachery and reveals that it was Claudius's plot. Hamlet and Laertes exchange forgiveness, before they both die.

Other characters' views of Laertes vary widely. Polonius feels a need to send a servant to France to spy on his son's behaviour. Ophelia tells him not to be a hypocrite, telling her to behave herself with Hamlet, but then being immoral himself in France. Hamlet is at first puzzled by Laertes's hatred for him, but later admits that he sees his own cause displayed in Laertes's actions.

Polonius’s son and Ophelia’s brother, a young man who spends much of the play in France. Passionate and quick to action, Laertes is clearly a foil for the reflective Hamlet.

Prince of Norway. He is an aggressive leader who longs to recover the lands and power lost by his father in a past battle with Denmark. Eventually, he is asked by Hamlet to rule Denmark in the aftermath of the tragedy.

Although Fortinbras makes only two brief appearances in the latter half of the play, he is referred to throughout: King Claudius sends ambassadors to Norway in the hopes of staving off his invasion, and they return with the news that he will attack Poland but leave Denmark alone. At the very end—after all the major characters except Horatio are dead—Fortinbras and his army enter, accompanied by ambassadors from England who have come to announce that Claudius's supposed orders to execute Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have been carried out. With the throne of Denmark now vacant, Fortinbras is to be crowned ruler. This may be an allusion to the political situation of the day: at the time the play was written, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden were united under a single crown (see Union of Kalmar).

Fortinbras also serves as a parallel to Hamlet in may ways: Like the latter, he is motivated largely by the death of his father, whose name he also bears (as Hamlet does his). In other respects, Fortinbras serves as a foil for Hamlet: While the Danish prince is hesitant and given to making long-winded speeches, the Norwegian is impulsive and hot-headed, determined to avenge his slain father at any cost.

he young Prince of Norway, whose father the king (also named Fortinbras) was killed by Hamlet’s father (also named Hamlet). Now Fortinbras wishes to attack Denmark to avenge his father’s honor, making him another foil for Prince Hamlet.

The specter of Hamlet’s recently deceased father. The ghost, who claims to have been murdered by Claudius, calls upon Hamlet to avenge him. However, it is not entirely certain whether the ghost is what it appears to be, or whether it is something else. Hamlet speculates that the ghost might be a devil sent to deceive him and tempt him into murder, and the question of what the ghost is or where it comes from is never definitively resolved.

King Hamlet is a character from William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, also known as The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. He should not be confused with his son, Prince Hamlet, who is the central figure of the play. In the dramatis personae, King Hamlet is referred to as the "Ghost of Hamlet's father", and is listed at the very bottom of the hierarchy, even after the women and minor characters, presumably because he is dead. The stage directions identify him simply as "Ghost." He is loosely based on a legendary Jutish chieftain, named Horwendill, who appears in Chronicon Lethrense and in Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum.

The officers who first see the ghost walking the ramparts of Elsinore and who summon Horatio to witness it. Marcellus is present when Hamlet first encounters the ghost. Fransisco is a soldier and guardsman at Elsinore.

In Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern first appear in Act II, Scene 2, where they attempt to place themselves in the confidence of Prince Hamlet, their childhood friend. The smooth and courtly language they employ immediately establishes them as sycophants.^[1] In reality, however, they serve as spies for the corrupt King Claudius, Hamlet's uncle, who usurped the throne and constantly attempts to check his nephew. Hamlet welcomes them as "excellent good friends", but, seeing through their guise, comments that they won't "deal justly" with him about their mission.^[1]. Realizing that he lacks allies except for Horatio, Hamlet gives a well-known speech on depression to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.^[1]

In Act III, Hamlet drops the pretense of friendship, coldly dismissing the two in Scene 2 by his only use of the royal "we" in the play. To his mother, he comments in Scene 4 that "I will trust [them] as I will adders fang’d".

When Hamlet kills Polonius, Claudius recruits Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to escort Hamlet to England, providing them with a letter for the King of England instructing him to have Hamlet killed. Along the journey, the distrustful Hamlet finds and rewrites the letter instructing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to be killed instead. When their ship is attacked by pirates, Hamlet returns to Denmark, leaving Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to go to their deaths; he comments in Act V, Scene 2 that "They are not near my conscience; their defeat / Does by their own insinuation grow". Ambassadors returning later report that "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead."

As agents of the corruption infecting the court, the two toadies contribute to setting up the confrontation between Hamlet and Claudius.^[1] The poet expects the audience to appreciate the poetic justice of their deaths:^[1] While they are very likely ignorant of the deadly contents of the letter they carry to England, and are to that extent innocent victims of Hamlet's retaliation, they are seen as having received the just desserts for their participation in Claudius's intrigues.^[1] The courtiers always appear as a pair, except in editions following the First Folio text, where Guildenstern enters four lines after Rosencrantz in Act IV, Scene 3.^[1]