Customer Reviews

Hamlet (Cliffs Notes)

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I remember well using Cliffs Notes for Hamlet when I was in high school. I did not like Shakespeare at all. I couldn't understand it. I didn't just read the Cliffs Notes, but used it as I read the book to help me interpret what I was reading. The book explains the play passage by passage.

As useful as the Cliffs Notes are for understanding Shakespeare, I found the analyses at the end an excellent extra for diving deeper into the story. In fact, I used one of the analyses for a paper I had to complete in my class. I did my paper on the idea that there were two parts to Hamlet's personality. He was a morally-conscious seeker of truth as well as a man obsessed with bloody revenge and avenging truth. Cliffs Notes not only gave me this idea for the paper, but cited passages throughout the play as evidence. My paper discussed the two sides of Hamlet and how his changing emotions steered the course of the play. I covered Hamlet's encounters with Claudius, his mother Queen Gertrude, Polonius (showcasing Hamlet'wicked side), Horatio, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and Ophelia (Cliffs notes reveals certain passage that might imply Hamlet stole her virginity) as proof of my thesis. I ended up getting 100% on the paper which was amazing considering how poor I was in understanding Shakespeare. The class was 14 years ago and I still have the paper. I owe it all to Cliffs Notes!

I had to write an essay on "Hamlet" in English class this year, and the Cliffsnotes helped me tremendously (considering that I hadn't even read the book, I wrote a pretty good essay with its help). Each scene is given a thorough explanation, and it has an index of themes and a tree of all the characters. Not only does it simplify the book, it also analyzes further and clears up any confusion about the plot. It helped me a lot, I recommend it highly!