Shakespeare: Protean Plays Final
Tyler Stoltenberg
English 339: Special Topics
Professor Wendy Wall
June 2008
Hamlet Act 5 Scene 1 Lines 168-223
Chap-fallen
OED defintions:
1. With the chap or lower jaw hanging down, as an effect of extreme exhaustion or debility, of a wound received, or esp. of death.
2. fig. Dejected, dispirited; crest-fallen.
Appears in some editions as "chop-fallen" which has the same meaning.
This is a double meaning, since Yorick's lower jaw is completely missing, but he is also dejected since instead of his usual jovial self he is dead and silent. This shows Hamlet carrying over his wit and humor from his encounter with the Gravedigger to a more serious moment in which he is staring death in the face.
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