Pick 1 out of the 8 examples below.

1) Clearly, Hamlet makes some good, some bad, and some ugly decisions in the process of trying to solve his perhaps insoluble problem. Compare one or more of his decisions to one or more of your own. What can be learned through the consequences and results? You may also choose another character (particularly Gertrude, Claudius, Ophelia, Horatio, Polonius and Laertes.) (As with all of these topics, your essay will refer to the CRITICAL THINKING summary sheet included here.)

2) Who is the best critical thinker in this play? See the bottom of this page. Use the terminology provided.

3) Who is the worst critical thinker? Try to get beyond the obvious in this and any essay you write for this class. Use the terminology provided.

4) Compare yourself to Hamlet or to another character in the play. Or compare Hamlet to a celebrity whose career you follow closely enough to provide good supporting details to demonstrate similarities and differences.

5) Spying—compare an experience of spying in your own life to those dramatized in HAMLET.

6) Disastrous obeying of parents—if you have had an experience that you think might apply, compare your own situation to that of the characters in HAMLET. If you already did this for the first essay, please do not repeat. Or: Parental “meddling” that leads to unwanted or unpleasant results.

7) Complicating your life with “over-thinking,” as Hamlet seems to do with some frequency, is not uncommon to many of us in 2021; write about a time when you “turned Hamlet” with a crucial experience in your life.

8) “He feels that he is in a play—he is anyway.” Write about a time when, like Hamlet, you felt stuck in the theatrical determination of your life.