Characters in Hamlet Characters in Hamlet What follows is an overview of the main characters in William Shakespeare's "Hamlet", followed by a list and summary of the minor characters from the play. Three different early versions of the play survive: known as the First Quarto ("Q1"), Second Quarto ("Q2"), and First Folio ("F1"), each has lines—and even scenes—missing in the others, and some character names vary. Marcellus, Bernardo (or Barnardo) and Francisco are sentries at Elsinore. Francisco gives up his watch to Bernardo in the opening of the play, and it is Bernardo and Marcellus, who first alert Horatio to the appearance of
Themes in Titus Andronicus is mentioned several times, and just as they are driven by a desire for revenge, so too are the characters in "Titus"; the entire narrative from midway through Act 1 is built around the plotting of revenge. According to Hereward Thimbleby Price, Shakespeare "is writing a Senecan play according to the rules, that is to say, a play in which the hero is a man who inexorably pursues revenge and who dies in the act of taking it." Bill Alexander, who directed a Royal Shakespeare Company production in 2003, argues that the play is largely about revenge and the desire