ShmoopTube

Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.

Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos


Shakespeare Videos 53 videos

A Midsummer Night's Dream
32893 Views

Aren't midsummer night dreams the worst? You wake up all sweaty and gross, and for a minute there, you can't even remember where you are. And also,...

A Midsummer Night's Dream Summary
67434 Views

Love potions are tricky business (not that we've ever tried using one, of course). They can make you fall in love with the wrong person…or, in th...

As You Like It
10350 Views

We're not sure if good ol' Shakespeare would endorse The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, but that's not going to stop us from hosting themed viewing...

See All

Shakespeare's Hamlet 5 The Mousetrap 100 Views


Share It!


Description:

Why did Shakespeare write a play within a play? What were his thoughts on the game Mouse Trap? The answer to one of these questions is waiting in this video. 

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:00

Thank you We sneak in Shakespeare's hamlet The mousetrap Alas

00:09

shmoop How does the mass trap play such a significant

00:14

role in hamlet So hamlet basically is already in a

00:18

place of suspicion and he has been told by the

00:20

ghost that his uncle claudius has killed his father the

00:24

ghost now so he does this really interesting thing He

00:27

decides that he's going to construct a play that is

00:31

going to reiterate the plot of his father's death on

00:36

dh Then watch claudius to see how he reacts to

00:38

it and see if he reacts strongly Well then he

00:40

must have done it and if he doesn't react with

00:42

on the story doesn't serve the whole so the play

00:45

itself this play within a play called the trap becomes

00:48

a metaphor for how we often use plays in general

00:51

right which is teo gauge how people react to them

00:54

but that's how we do it or not necessarily what

00:56

we create but how we react to creations Why is

01:01

shakespeare so font of having a play within his play

01:04

So one because he was a smart guy and interested

01:07

in the form of what he was doing in general

01:08

right So he is interested in the play as such

01:11

and he wants us as viewers to really consider what

01:14

it means That we're at a play and not just

01:16

experience it totally immersive Lee as it were also there's

01:20

a simple reason that it's a really like fun way

01:23

Tohave interlude like having having a stage on the stage

01:28

itself allows youto have kind of these frame narrative so

01:31

that you get totally different settings How does the mass

01:38

trap play such a significant role in hamlet Why is

01:42

shakespeare so fond of having a play within his play 00:01:46.727 --> [endTime] What Oh

Related Videos

A Tale of Two Cities Summary
75858 Views

Meet Charles Darnay, the nobleman who spends more time on trial and in prison than attending balls and drinking expensive wine. Don't feel too bad...

Beowulf
113098 Views

Written in Anglo-Saxon, or Old English, sometime between the 8th and 11th centuries, Beowulf is an epic poem that reflects the early medieval warri...

Brave New World
79224 Views

Brave New World is supposed be an exciting book about a negative utopia and the corrupt powers of authority. So where’s the big car chase? What's...

Dracula
27348 Views

What is Dracula really about? Just Count Dracula? Or is there more to it than vampires? This video addresses some major ideas in Bram Stoker’s cl...

Dracula: Father of the Modern Vampire
17556 Views

There are plenty of famous vampires that send chills up our spines, but Dracula was and still is the king of them all. No one else can touch him. N...