What is the significance of the plays title the mousetrap

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Hamlet derides Polonius, but Gertrude interrupts to invite her son to sit beside her. Hamlet chooses instead to lie down at Ophelia 's feet. He converses a bit with Ophelia before the dumb show — a pantomime — begins, and she mistakes his manic behavior for merriness.

The dumb show mimes the following: A man murders a king while he is sleeping in his garden, and his loving wife, initially inconsolable over the king's death, marries the usurper, who has crowned himself king. When the dumb show ends, the players perform the actual play, which depicts the same plot as the pantomime.

An intermission follows the Player Queen's declaration that she will never remarry should the Player King die. Hamlet seizes the moment to ask Gertrude what she thinks of the play, and Gertrude answers that she is enjoying the play but that the "Lady doth protest too much. Claudius asks Hamlet for the play's title, to which Hamlet replies, The Mousetrap. He says that the play presents the true story of a murder carried out in Vienna. He explains the action of the play, and Ophelia congratulates Hamlet for his story-telling skill.

Hamlet makes a crude pun, suggesting that he could interpret the actions of Ophelia and her lover if he could watch them. Ophelia accuses him of being keen cruel , and Hamlet responds with another sexual innuendo. Hearing the word keen to mean sexually eager, he tells her she would have to work hard to relieve his sexual urges.

Ophelia laughs that he is wittier than she, but more indecent. Hamlet believes that this person is bound to display unusual emotion.

Hamlet also thinks that if the King is caught when displaying this unusual emotion, this will give him a moral right to kill Claudius in revenge. Indeed, Hamlet us unsure about the identity of the Ghost and if afraid that the Ghost is actually a disguised devil that will tempt him into a crime.

The crime, apparently, seems very severe and deserving eternal punishment for Hamlet, because he never stops thinking about the danger to his soul after killing an innocent person. It is only at the end of The Mousetrap that Hamlet loses hold of this frightening idea.

In particular, Hamlet warns Claudius through his explicit joy over being on the road to finding the desired proof. Your majesty and we that have free souls, it touches us not ….