Literary Devices In Hamlet's Soliloquy

In act 1 scene 2 of “Hamlet” the character Hamlet speaks his first soliloquy which reveals his innermost thoughts and feelings to the audience. In this soliloquy Hamlet’s unstable state of mind is evident as well as his feelings of despair about his father’s death and his disgust of his mother’s remarriage to his uncle Claudius. Hamlet’s hatred for his uncle is shown through harsh comparisons between Claudius and his late father. This soliloquy takes place after Claudius has begun his reign as king and has addressed the court for the first time but before Hamlet hears about the apparition that Horatio and the guards have seen. Hamlet’s character and personality are shown in this soliloquy through the use of classical imagery, diction and

I Hamlet's second soliloquy, we face a determined Hamlet who is craving revenge for his father. “Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat/ In this distracted globe. Remember thee!” Hamlet feels sorry for his father who was unable to repent of his sins and is therefore condemned to a time in purgatory. He promises his father that in spite of his mental state (he is distracted, confused and shocked) he will avenge his death. He holds him in the highest regards because he sees his father as a role model. “Yea, from the table of my memory/ I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records,”. He’ll erase all prior Knowledge and experience and leave only his father’s “commandment”. He will engrave it in the front of his mind to show his

“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.

Hamlet, one of Shakespeare’s tragic plays, portrays the story of a young man’s quest to avenge his murdered father and his quest to find his true identity. In his soliloquies, Prince Hamlet reveals to the readers his personal perceptions of the events that take place in his homeland, Denmark, and of which are either indirectly or directly tied to his father’s murder. Many critics and scholars agree that while Hamlet’s soliloquies reveal the search of his identity and true character, his soliloquies universally illustrate man’s search for his true identity.

In this paper I will be analyzing and discussing how these four soliloquies reflect changes in Hamlet’s mental state; his

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

When analyzing Shakespeare's Hamlet through the deconstructionist lens various elements of the play come into sharper focus. Hamlet's beliefs about himself and his crisis over indecision are expounded upon by the binary oppositions created in his soliloquies.

Hamlet’s character drastically develops over the first four acts of Hamlet, and his character development is most evident through the soliloquys he delivers throughout the play. The most character development can be seen from the first soliloquy, to the second, the third, the sixth, and the seventh and final soliloquy. Hamlet’s inner conflict with his thoughts and his actions are well analyzed in his soliloquys, as well as his struggles with life and death, and his very own existence. He begins the play wondering what purpose he has in life now that his father is dead and his mother has remarried to his uncle. After finding out foul play was involved in his father’s death, he is motivated by revenge. Finally, he wonders how he can enact his revenge while continuously overthinking and overanalyzing his actions.

Shakespeare begins Hamlet's struggle with recognition of Hamlet's sincere grief and anger following his father's untimely death. A taste of the conflict is expressed in the dialogue

In Hamlet's second soliloquy, Act 2, Scene 2, his speech moves through anger, self-condemnation and agonised self-accusation, impassioned fury and mocking self criticism, deep reflection and determination. He continuously points out his faults on how he cannot raise himself to adequate passion to avenge for his father's murder, he comments on how the actor showed grief for his lines, and how he cannot, even though he has great reason to. Hamlet's mood is far beyond normal and has gone into philosophical realms, continuously using metaphors to show his disgust and anguish for himself and his attitudes to the current affairs in the state of his own home.

Shakespeare’s employment of dramatic struggle and disillusionment through his character Hamlet, contributes to the continued engagement of modern audiences. The employment of the soliloquy demonstrates Shakespeare’s approach to the dramatic treatment of these emotions. The soliloquy brings a compensating intimacy, and becomes the means by which Shakespeare brings the audience not only to a knowledge of secret thoughts of characters, but into the closest emotional touch with them too. Through this, the audiences therefore gain a closer relationship with Hamlet, and are absorbed by him because they are able to resonate with his circumstances, as he is faced with enduring truths of the human condition. Through these, the struggle and

He makes these moments very prevalent in continuing the major plot line of the play. For example, Hamlet discusses his struggles in one of his most famous monologues, “To be or not to be-that is the question/ Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer/ The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,/ Or to take arms against a sea of troubles/ And by opposing, end them” (3-1, 64-68). Hamlet is extremely depressed and unsure about what actions he must take at this point. His uncle, King Claudius, brings him to a crossroads, and he questions his purpose in living in misery, as well as being disadvantaged compared to him. Eventually, he gets the idea of taking revenge, when he plans to murder the king and listen to his ghostly father’s claim. While these ideas are shared openly amongst the audience, Shakespeare’s personal interests were less revealing in many of his sonnets. For example, Shakespeare seems to be jealous and angered by a rival poet in several sonnets, particularly Sonnet 79. “But now my gracious numbers are decayed/ And my sick Muse doth give an other place./ Deserves the trail of a worthier pen; yet what of thee thy poet doth invent/ He robs thee of, and pays it thee again” (3-8). Shakespeare believes his friend is being stolen by the rival poet, who provides little grace and compassion for him compared to how he treats the young poet. It is still not known either who the rival poet or the young man were, and Shakespeare never revealed in public or took any action. This provides a sharp contrast to his works of Hamlet and many other of his famous writings in that his characters reveal more personal thoughts that progress the

Coming immediately after the meeting with the Ghost of Hamlet’s father, Shakespeare uses his second soliloquy to present Hamlet’s initial responses to his new role of revenger. Shakespeare is not hesitant in foreboding the religious and metaphysical implications of this role, something widely explored in Elizabethan revenge tragedy, doing so in the first lines as Hamlet makes an invocation to ‘all you host of heaven’ and ‘earth’. Hamlet is shown to impulsively rationalize the ethical issues behind his task as he views it as a divine ordinance of justice, his fatalistic view reiterated at the end of scene 5 with the rhyming couplet ‘O cursed spite,/That ever I was born to set it right’. These ideas are

talks of actors on the stage and says ‘Had he the motive and the cue

Hamlet, the main character of William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, is one of the most complex characters ever created. His intricacy can be seen in the amount of soliloquies he speaks throughout the play. Each one of Hamlet’s soliloquies reveals his innermost thoughts and gives the reader or audience insight as to what he is feeling at that time. Hamlet’s quartet of soliloquies illustrates how Hamlet is initially indecisive, but eventually makes a decision to take revenge against his uncle.