Hamlet Soliloquy Analysis

What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more." (Hamlet IV.iv.

Hamlet realizes how slow and hesitant he is to kill Claudius following the actor’s performance. He proclaims O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I:/ Is it not monstrous that this player here,/ But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,/ Could force his soul so to his own conceit/ That from her working all his visage wann’d,/ Tears in his eyes, distraction in ‘s aspect,/ A broken voice, and his whole function suiting/ With forms to his conceit?/and all for nothing!” (2.2.53-60)

Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a tragic play about murder, betrayal, revenge, madness, and moral corruption. It touches upon philosophical ideas such as existentialism and relativism. Prince Hamlet frequently questions the meaning of life and the degrading of morals as he agonizes over his father’s murder, his mother’s incestuous infidelity, and what he should or shouldn’t do about it. At first, he is just depressed; still mourning the loss of his father as his mother marries his uncle. After he learns about the treachery of his uncle and the adultery of his mother, his already negative countenance declines further. He struggles with the task of killing Claudius, feeling burdened about having been asked to find a solution to a situation that was

In Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, Hamlet, a studious young man and Prince of Denmark, struggles to face the death of his father and the task to kill his father’s murderer, Claudius. He was once known as a charming, smart young man before his father’s death. However, Hamlet experiences depression and anger at the world, causing him to look outwardly on society but failing to look inwardly on himself. The death of his father and the task for vengeance leads him to question whether or not he should follow through in killing Claudius. He becomes a man of thought rather than a man of action. In addition, the delay of King Claudius’ murder leads the readers to believe that he wishes not to kill him; he

“To be, or not to be, that is the question,” (3.1.64). This famous line in William Shakespeare's Hamlet perfectly encapsulates Hamlet’s internal struggle throughout the play. Hamlet tells the story of the young prince of Denmark and his desire for revenge on the uncle, Claudius, who murdered his father. As is the case in many works of literature, Hamlet changes greatly throughout the play. However, because of his attempts to act insane, it can be difficult to precisely map the changes in Hamlet’s character. By carefully investigating his seven soliloquies, where he is alone and has no need to “put on an antic disposition,” one can understand and interpret how Hamlet’s character develops throughout the play.

It can be said that Fortinbras is an energetic leader and soldier with clear intentions from the way he can quickly assemble his men to attack Poland. Although Fortinbras says that Hamlet was a soldier, too, “and for his passage, the soldier’s music…”(5.2, 444-445), the reader sees Hamlet only as a scholar because he seems to only think things out rather than take action. Though, Fortinbras’ statement helps us understand that Hamlet was once indeed a good soldier. Scene two of the last act of Hamlet reveals the true character of Fortinbras. After arriving at Elsinore, he immediately acts upon seeing the disturbing scene, much like he acts in battle, “Let four captains bear Hamlet like a soldier…”(5.2, 441-450).

Hamlet has a conversation with the Capitan of the Fortinbras army, and it was that conversation that influenced Hamlet to finally kill Claudius. Talking to the Capitan made Hamlet realize he has to take action, if the Fortinbras army can go to war over a miniscule matter, Hamlet can go to war over a huge matter that has been haunting him. After talking to the Capitan Hamlet realizes he has been very hesitant in seeking revenge because of over-analyzing his thoughts, and he vows that he will finally take action. He does.

When Hamlet is on his way to England he runs into Fortinbras and his army. He learns that Fortinbras is leading a huge army for a small piece of land that is not worth anything. He is greatly inspired by him though because he is willing to do it to protect his family and his father’s honor. After seeing them Hamlet says, “Witness this army of such mass and charge, Led by a delicate and tender prince, Whose spirit, with divine ambition puffed, Makes mouths at the invisible event, Exposing what is mortal and unsure To all that fortune, death, and danger dare, Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great Is not to stir without great argument, But greatly to find quarrel in a straw When honor’s at the stake.” Hamlet (IV.iv.47-56) Hamlet realizes that he wants to

In his mature, adult mind, he knows that he must avenge his father, but there lives an innocent child in his conscience who does not want to commit murder; and Hamlet perceives this as cowardice. It seems as though Hamlet is struggling with what he knows he must do, and actually doing it. While instead of pursuing his father’s revenge, he lets his emotions dictate his actions (in this case, his lack of action). So, in self-justification, he tucks away his apprehension and decides to seek proof of Claudius’s murder of Hamlet’s father. Furthermore, Hamlet is beginning to question his identity as a “pigeon-livered coward.” What is more noteworthy, however, is that both soliloquies exhibit Hamlet to be an immature boy, as he speaks on impulses of emotion, rather than logic itself.

In the first place, the opening lines of Hamlet’s soliloquy uncovers his innermost feelings about all the events that are occurring around him. His father’s death and his mother remarrying his uncle, have all impacted him so much that he is thinking about ways to escape this world. “Oh, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt (…), / Or that the Everlasting had not fixed / His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!”

Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet is about the prince of Denmark, Hamlet, and his quest to gain revenge of his father’s, King Hamlet’s, vicious murder which was committed by his uncle, Claudius, in the name of power and fortune. Hamlet is, at times, indecisive and hesitant thus he admires the passionate and even violent character of Fortinbras. This passage from Hamlet, one of Shakespeare’s play, portrays the theme of the relationship of thought to action by demonstrating how Hamlet’s admiration for Fortinbras’s dedicated character compels him to make rash decisions in order to fulfill his word. This passage is a soliloquy given by Hamlet, in Act 4 Scene 4, which explains why Hamlet was willing to take drastic measures to avenge his father.

Fortinbras, as Hamlet describes, is able to act without any fear of death “When honor’s at the stake.” (55) Everything that Fortinbras is seems to be the opposite of Hamlet, even though they are both seeking revenge and have lost a father. Thus Fortinbras’s presence reminds Hamlet of his own goals he originally set out for. It was due to Fortinbras and his army of “twenty thousand men” who “Go to their graves like beds” that allowed Hamlet to question his own courage and thus see his flaw. His fear of his own death which was supposedly decided in his fourth soliloquy is now once again troubling his own mind. Should he risk his life and face the unknown afterlife in his quest of vengeance? His intellect portrayed in the fourth soliloquy steered him into the belief that he should choose life over suicide, for fear of the “undiscovered country” (81) in which “no travelers return” (82). Though the image of “twenty thousand men” marching to their deaths and fighting for a piece of land which is not even “tomb enough and continent/To hide the slain” gives reason for Hamlet to doubt his courage as he is afraid of death whereas Fortinbras and his army is not. In Hamlet’s book, this is a suicidal attempt, the act which he decided against in the fourth soliloquy. Hamlet’s intelligence thus portrays his madness as it is not his ability

Hamlet is conflicted with his fear and morals . He wants to fill his duty as a son and go on with the revenge but he is scared and feels like a cowered. passion and fear for revenge and Hamlet’s love and doubt toward his father’s ghost. This soliloquy develops Hamlet’s character as Hamlet is frustrated with himself. for he is not being courageous and to complete the revenge. He starts to be doubtful of ability and strength.

Steeped within his own pool of madness, the prince of Denmark seeks to avenge the premature death of his father. Claudius must die, die, die! Nothing else matters: not love, or death, or preservation of state, or the means to which the task is accomplished. To right what is wrong is the only focus that matters. Hamlet, blind by his own emotional transitions, is not aware until it is too late that his counterpart to the north also plots and prepares. Being one of the first writers to develop dynamic and intricate characters that leave the readers to question and interpret the characters’ actions for themselves, Shakespeare understood better than anybody else "what a piece of work is a man!" (2.2.305). In the play Hamlet, Shakespeare

Hamlet’s inaction due to fear ultimately leads to the death of six characters, including himself. Hamlet’s outward conflict is the death of his father and consequently, his uncle becoming the King of Denmark. Hamlet expresses his distaste of his uncle becoming King when he says, “A little more than kin, and less than kind” (1.2.65). Hamlet implies that his uncle is too closely related to him after becoming his step-father. Moreover, during his soliloquy in Act 1 Scene 2, Hamlet blames his mother for being weak and criticizes her decision to marry someone one month after her husband’s death when he says, “A beast that wants discourse of reason/ Would have mourn’d longer” (1.2.146-7). Hamlet denotes that his mother is less reasonable than an animal as she marries one month after King Hamlet’s death, which is an insult to her intelligence. Furthermore, Hamlet compares the world to “an unweeded garden” (1.2.135) and this displays how he does not want to live in this corrupt world anymore. Hamlet’s inward conflict is his inaction after swearing to the ghost that he would exact revenge for his father’s murder.