Act 2, Scene 1 Overview

In the beginning of the scene, we find Polonious telling Reynaldo that he wants to go find out what Laertes is doing off at school, aka spying on him. He tells Reynaldo to do this by telling lies in order to get the truth, a direct contradiction to Polonious' "Honesty" speech he gave to Laertes just before he left for school. After Reynaldo leaves, Ophelia comes in and tells her father that Hamlet is acting very strangely and is scaring her. He came into her room while she was sewing with his clothes all askew and looked "as if he had been loosed out of hell". He then grabbed her wrists very hard, and then backed up and just stared at her with an ackward stare for a fairly long time. After shaking his head three times as if satisfied, he walked out of the room with his eyes fixed on Ophelia the entire time. Polonious thinks Hamlet is doing this because he is madly in love with Ophelia and he's gone mad because she does not return his letters as her father requested. Polonious and Ophelia then leave to go tell the King has happened with Hamlet.