Structure in HamletIn Shakespeare's tragic play Hamlet, what is the structure? Is it a two-part construction: Rising Action and Falling Action? Is it a three-part construction? Or four parts? This essay will answer these questions and others related to structure. AC Bradley in Shakespearean Tragedy analyzes the structure of Shakespearean tragedy: Since a Shakespearean tragedy represents a conflict that ends in catastrophe, any such tragedy can be roughly divided into three parts. The first of these sets forth or exposes the situation, or state of affairs, from which the conflict arises; and may, therefore, be called the Exposition. The second deals with the definitive beginning, growth and vicissitudes of the conflict. It consequently constitutes the majority of the opera, comprising the Second, Third and Fourth Acts, and usually part of the First and part of the Fifth. The final section of the tragedy shows the outcome of the conflict in a catastrophe. (52) Therefore the first step of Hamlet's structure involves the presentation of a conflict-generating situation. Marchette Chute in “The Story Told in Hamlet” describes the beginning of the play's Exposition: The story opens in the cold and dark of a winter night in Denmark, as the guard is being changed on the battlements of the royal castle of Elsinore. For two nights in a row, just as the bell strikes one, a ghost appeared on the battlements, a figure dressed in full armor and with a face similar to that of the late King of Denmark, Hamlet's father. A young man named Horatio, who is a schoolmate of Hamlet, has been informed of the apparition and cannot believe it, and one of the officers has... half the paper... Aristocrat." Readings on Hamlet. Ed. Don Nardò. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1999. Rpt. from The Masks of Hamlet. Newark, NJ: University of Delaware Press, 1995. http://www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/hamlet/full.htmlWest, Rebecca. “A Court and a World Infected with the Disease of Corruption”. Ed. Don Nardò. Rpt. from The Court and the Castle. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1957. Wright, Louis B. and Virginia A. LaMar. "Hamlet: A Man Who Thinks Before He Acts." Nardò. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1999. Rpt. from The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Ed. Louis B. Wright and Virginia A. LaMar, 1958.