Explain the speech on pg. 311 (Act V) that prepares us for the tragic conclusion to the play. Include Hamlet’s attitude to fate in answering this question: how has his attitude changed from earlier in the play?

In Act V Scene I Hamlet gives another of his soliloquies, this one beginning with the famous lines "Alas, poor Yorick!" As Hamlet picks up the skull of the dead court jester, he reflects once more upon just how fleeting life is. Holding the skull in his hands brings home to Hamlet the full terror of death and how it must one day come to us all. Hamlet has such wonderful memories of the many happy times he spent in Yorick's company, and yet this jester, this man who spread such joy and laughter to so many, could not escape his mortal fate anymore than the rest of us.
Hamlet has been brooding upon death ever since the Ghost appeared to him. With each passing day, he gains a deeper understanding of the part that fate plays in our lives. This provides a partial explanation as to why he's vacillated for so long in wreaking vengeance upon Claudius. Hamlet's insight concerning fate has been granted to him but not to others. Gertrude, for example, arrogantly defies fate acting as if she will live forever. If only, Hamlet muses, Yorick could appear before his mother and disabuse her of such a notion:

Now get you to my lady’s chamber and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favor she must come.