Question

Read the excerpt from Hamlet, Act I, Scene ii.

Horatio: My lord, I came to see your father’s funeral.

Hamlet: I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student;
I think it was to see my mother’s wedding.

Horatio: Indeed, my lord, it follow’d hard upon.

Hamlet: Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral bak’d meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.

In the excerpt, Shakespeare characterizes Hamlet as

amused that he was able to attend his own mother’s wedding.
disgusted that Gertrude and Claudius married so quickly.
grateful that his mother did not have to remain a widow for long.
resentful that Gertrude and Claudius wasted so much food.

Answer 1

disgusted that Gertrude and Claudius married so quickly.

Hamlet’s lines are bitter and sarcastic (“I think it was to see my mother’s wedding,” “Thrift, thrift… the funeral bak’d meats / Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables”), criticizing how soon a wedding followed the funeral and the impropriety of reusing funeral provisions.