How Did Shakespeare Use Soliloquies In Hamlet

In William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” there are four major soliloquies that reflect the character of Hamlet.

In his soliloquy the dramatic purpose is highly effective and keeps the audience connected with Hamlet’s intricate way with words. His deep thoughts display his emotional side, and allow the audience to have insight into exactly how he is feeling. He contrasts himself with the player when he reads the Hecuba lines because he can’t comprehend how the player was able to emotionally connect with lines that had no meaning to him. This is explained in the text when Hamlet says “ What would he do/Had he the motive and the cue for passion/That I have? He would drown the stage with tears”(2.2. 519-521) Meanwhile, those lines are Hamlet’s reality and he feels he can't express his grief and sorrow the way the player did. Hamlet feels like a coward for

Throughout history, literature has been able to captivate and enchant audiences of all backgrounds. Words have an undeniable ability to sway a crowd’s emotions and truly affect them. William Shakespeare, one of the most revered writers of all time, had such skills. His plays are timeless pieces of art considered the foundations of the English literature. Shakespeare’s most dramatic and infamous tragedy, Hamlet, has earned its place as a cornerstone. In the play, Shakespeare poetically writes speeches that show the true colours of the characters, whether good or devious. The main antagonist, Claudius, shows his treachery to the Elizabethan audience, through his speech to his wife Gertrude. Claudius’ conversation with Gertrude in Act 4,

In William Shakespeare 's revenge tragedy play Hamlet, the prevailing themes of revenge, madness, and morality were recognized by the Elizabethan audience and appealed to them. The play 's central focus is on a young prince, Hamlet, who has gone through many challenges to avenge his father 's death. Prince Hamlet got his revenge on his deceitful uncle, Claudius, the same man who murdered his father and married Hamlet 's mother. From the original text of the play, a major scene in Act 4 shows where Hamlet decides that it 's time for vengeance, expressing it in a soliloquy. This scene would have appealed to the Elizabethan audience because they would observe Hamlet 's thoughts. In addition, the soliloquy would have expanded on the theme of revenge, and how it would affect the final scene. Finally, by emphasizing the theme of morality in his speech, it would have the audience to make connections towards their own consciousness. Shakespeare 's Hamlet successfully targets the Elizabethan audience in Hamlet 's speech from Act IV.

The theme, family, in The Tragedy of Hamlet is major theme with lots of major points. This play is notorious for how it dwells on the issue of incest. In Shakespeare’s time, incest was a sin against God and the state. Queen Elizabeth I asked the Church of England to come up with a list of rules about marriage, basically a list of relatives who couldn’t marry, including in-laws. Also another focus is how politics can impact the dynamics of family. The values brought on by a parent are vital in developing a characters values and sense of purpose.

Investigating the Function of the Main Soliloquies in Shakespeare's Hamlet “Hamlet” is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare in around 1601 when Queen Elizabeth the first was on the throne. In the play we see the royal court of Denmark becoming more and more corrupt with ghosts, murder, madness and incest, culminating in the highest death toll in any of Shakespeare’s plays. The lead character of Hamlet is an intellectual whose aim in the play is to avenge his father’s death by killing his uncle, the king. However his tendency to think too much and inability to carry out his actions gets in the way of him bringing the king to justice, and this hesitancy is a major recurring theme in the play.

Apart from the unlawfulness of the marriage at the time, because it was improper for a widow to remarry, there is a situation in which she marries Claudius, her late husband’s brother, when he did not wore neither a dead month. This situation in the play seems quite normal for the members of the court and everyone celebrates the marriage except Hamlet, who is the only one that sees the negative and illegal side of the issue. Furthermore, all this makes Hamlet act in a strange way, arriving to seem, in many cases, that he is mad. All these explanations fit really well with the cultural materialist view or, in other words, the political and historical side of the play, that is, as the marriage is illegitimate, Claudius, who becomes the king, is illegitimate as

  The purpose of a soliloquy is to outline the thoughts and feelings of a certain character at a point in the play. It reveals the innermost beliefs of the character and offers an unbiased perspective as it is merely the character talking to the audience, albeit not directly, and not to any other characters who may cause the character to withhold their true opinions. Therefore, Hamlet's first soliloquy (act 1, scene 2) is essential to the play as it highlights his inner conflict caused by the events of the play. It reveals his true feelings and as such emphasizes the difference between his public appearance, his attitude towards Claudius in the previous scene is less confrontational than here where he is

An incident that affects Hamlet is when his love, Ophelia, rejects him. In return, He insults Ophelia for being a woman; “Get thee to a nunnery. Why, wouldst thou be a breeder / of sinners.” (3, 1, 121-122) Hamlet believes that all women sin and that they cheat on men. Hamlet tells Ophelia to go to the nunnery, in order to protect her chastity and become more loyal to men. Another person that Hamlet cannot trust is his mother. When she marries her brother-in-law, he expresses his anger to her by stating: “She married – O most wicked speed! To post / With such dexterity to incestuous sheets! / It is not, nor cannot come to good.” (1, 2, 156-158). Hamlet is offended that the queen remarries the deceased king’s brother and does not feel any guilt for it. The reader is aware that the situation will not end up well and someone will be have to be killed for their crimes. Hamlet admits that he is angry with his mother when he confronts her about her actions. He finds it odd that his mother marries her dead husband’s brother and she mourns over the death for such a short period of time. Hamlet questions her nature by

allow anyone to act in this way. It is God who rules the universe and

William Shakespeare uses the literary technique of the soliloquy to allow the audience to see deeper into his characters’ thoughts in his play, Hamlet. This technique helps to reveal Hamlet’s true character, expressing emotions that the audience cannot see through his interactions with other characters. Through Hamlet’s soliloquies, one may notice that his reluctance to take actions that involve death can be attributed to his fear of the unknown and his uncertainty in regards to afterlife.

According to the moral customs of the time, the union of two people in marriage caused all other relatives to become blood related. With this in mind, the remarriage of an in-law to a widow was nothing short of incestuous. Prince Hamlet believed this to be so, declaring early on of his mother “most wicked speed, to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets” (I. ii. 161-162)! He could not believe, that in addition to everything happening with the relations of surrounding countries, and his father’s recent death, that his mother would defy common morality and marry her brother, something most would never even consider. Claudius recognized the moral breach, but he and his “sometime sister, now [his] queen” (I. ii.

In hamlet soliloquies he often talks about whether or not he should kill Claudius and get often stuck in an indecisive argument with himself.

As a basic member of society, it is uncommon to find someone who is not familiar with the famous words: “To be, or not to be”; however, that is not the question trying to be answered here. What significance does Hamlet’s other six soliloquies add to the text? Hamlet, one of Shakespeare’s most popular works, has become an iconic piece of literature in English history. Hamlet’s seven soliloquies show his shift as a character throughout the entirety of the piece. By taking a deeper look into each of his monologues, one can become more aware of the plot at hand.

Immediately after Claudius takes the throne, Hamlet can perceive the perversion of the court. “O, that this too, too sallied1 flesh would melt,/Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!” (Shakespeare, 1.2.129-130). According to Dodsworth, an instinctual revulsion does not account for Hamlet's feeling of self-disgust. In English society at the time, Hamlet's unusual family situation was not definitively incestuous. He claims that Hamlet's (and the Ghost's) complaint of incest is “subordinate” to the larger issue of loss of honor (Dodsworth, 46-47). I propose, however, that this shame is more deep-rooted; a result of the collective depravity. Of all the characters in the play, Hamlet is the most aware of the presence of sin in the court.