Hamlet’s first soliloquy in Act One is an examination of his own suicidal ideation.Hamlet seems to feel out of control, conflicted, and restless. The first portion of his speech expresses his desires- to either disappear by outside trauma or to disappear by his own hands without damnation. He describes his flesh as “too sullied”- meaning defiled. This shows he believes that he is a victim- he started out pure, but the trials he has gone through have made him dirty. He goes on to say that he wishes his skin would “melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew”. Melting implies the presence of heat, and thawing is the quality of something frozen. Heat is associated with passion, pressure,hell, and,problems. If intense heat is applied to …show more content…
He is essentially “owned” by the Crown- he is branded by his royal lineage and trapped within the obligations of being the heir. Again, Hamlet seems to feel feel like his only option to escape the oppression of his life is death. However, Hamlet is a very inactive character- throughout the play, he fails to effectively commit to any planned course of action. This is no exception- he longs to feel in control and to escape his problems, but he is stopped by the threat of damnation. This unknown factor leads to Hamlet doing a lot of complaining, and a lot of doing nothing, much like his bovine counterparts. In the next portion, Hamlet seems flippant about living. He truly doesn’t care or see his life as a valuable privilege, but rather as a failing acquisition. He calls it “unprofitable”. Why would Hamlet view his life as some kind of business transaction? Perhaps because many things in life kind of are. Marriage, politics, and etiquette are all carefully planned out so that both parties benefit. However, in the deal between him and Life, Hamlet feels he is bankrupt. Further along, Hamlet uses the metaphor of an “unweeded garden” to reinforce Hamlet’s lack of control in his life.”Growing to seed” is the state of a plant which has dropped its leaves and is in a dormant state. The seasonal implication is winter- cold and isolating.Unweeded gardens are overgrown and disheveled due to neglect. No one is taking care of Hamlet’s “garden”, and now that
He is internally reflecting on the morality of revenge. In existentialism, it is believed that the best way to live is for man to accept disorder and nothingness because ignoring it would mean settling into a delusional security blanket. If this blanket is torn off, we are forced to face it abruptly. Hamlet becomes conflicted in this way during the play. His father’s death, learning about the murder and adultery, and facing the morality of revenge all quake his previous orderly life.Now, he must figure out what is right and wrong and what to do as he contemplates the noble idea of avenging his father’s death versus his own misanthropic view of human nature.
on an epic scale, Hamlet tell us that his father was so loving to her
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
Hamlet is considered to be Shakespeare's most famous play. The play is about Prince Hamlet and his struggles with the new marriage of his mother, Gertrude, and his uncle and now stepfather, King Claudius about only two months after his father’s death. Hamlet has an encounter with his father, Old King Hamlet, in ghost form. His father accuses Claudius of killing him and tells Hamlet to avenge his death. Hamlet is infuriated by this news and then begins his thoughts on what to do to get revenge. Hamlet and Claudius are contrasting characters. They do share similarities, however, their profound differences are what divides them.Hamlet was portrayed as troubled, inactive, and impulsive at times. Hamlet is troubled by many things, but the main source of his problems come from the the death of his father. “Oh, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew, or that the everlasting had not fixed his canon 'gainst self-slaughter” (Act 1, Scene 2). In this scene, Hamlet is contemplating suicide, which is caused by the death of his father and the new marriage of Gertrude and King Claudius. This scene shows the extent of how troubled Hamlet is. Even though Hamlet’s father asked him to avenge his death, Hamlet is very slow to act on this throughout the play. “Now might I do it pat. Now he is a-praying. And now I’ll do ’t. And so he goes to heaven. And so am I revenged.—That would be scanned. A villain kills my father, and, for that, I, his sole son, do this same villain send to heaven” (Act 3, Scene 3). This scene shows King Claudius praying, while Hamlet is behind him drawing his sword but decides not to kill
Hamlet does not see a need to live in a world as corrupted as thee, for which the new king Claudius has taken over, and has made life miserable for him. Hamlet questions his belief in G-d, for he does not have a say or choice in anything that occurs. Hamlet continues to live in the "unweeded garden" (135), which he refers to Denmark being a prison, given that Claudius has demanded for him to stay close by his side. Stuck in the town of Denmark, Hamlet does not have the choice to go to college and get an education. Claudius and his mother Gertrude control his boring life, and it leaves Hamlet with nothing to do. Hamlet feels that the mourning of his father by his mother was too short, indicating to Hamlet a false mourn, or simply that she did not care for the death of her husband, the king, for so many years. Hamlet says that his mother moved on so quickly from a Sun G-d to basically a nobody, "So excellent a king, that was to this/ Hyperion to a satyr, so loving to my mother, / That he might not beteem the winds of heaven/ Vist her face too roughly" (139-141). Hamlet thinks of his father as being such a great guy and powerful, and doesn't see how his mother could move on from such a great man, yet to belittle
Hamlet is a character that we love to read about and analyze. His character is so realistic, and he is so romantic and idealistic that it is hard not to like him. He is the typical young scholar facing the harsh reality of the real world. In this play, Hamlet has come to a time in his life where he has to see things as they really are. Hamlet is an initiation story. Mordecai Marcus states "some initiations take their protagonists across a threshold of maturity and understanding but leave them enmeshed in a struggle for certainty"(234). And this is what happens to Hamlet.
Hamlet is a pessimistic man who simply cannot see the positive aspects in his life. He attempts to justify the fact that the death of his father has left him with nothing to live for. In fact,
Hamlet’s first soliloquy comes in act one scene two, as Hamlet reflects on the current state of events. The chief focus of this soliloquy is essentially the rottenness of the king, queen and the world in general. In this passage the reader is introduced to Hamlet pseudo-obsession with death and suicide, which later will become a chief point of indecision. In this particular speech, however, Hamlet is fairly confident. He wishes that his “too too sullied flesh would melt”
“O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, / Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew, / Or that the Everlasting had not fixed / His canon 'gainst self-slaughter. O God, God, / How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable / Seem to me all the uses of this world! (Hamlet. 1.2.129-34)
With the murder of the man he looked up to so enviously, and the incestuous marriage between his mother and uncle, Hamlet is led to contemplate suicide multiple times. Near the beginning of the play this it is evident when Hamlet proclaims “O! that this too too solid flesh would melt” (1.2.129). Hamlet sees the world around him to be totally corrupt and he wishes that his flesh would melt. It is highly unlikely that one experiencing such internal conflict and pain would immediately go out to kill someone and this would put a hold on him obeying his father’s words. One of Hamlets most regarded soliloquies also illustrates his beaming emotions where he says “To be, or not to be, that is the question” (3.1.60).
Throughout the entirety of Hamlet, it becomes evident that Hamlet feels depressed following his father’s death, but he hides his feelings until he finds himself alone. Consequently, in this particular passage,
After expressing this initial yearning, Hamlet shifts to explain why exactly he feels this way. He describes the world as an “unweeded garden” (p.15, 1.2.135), defining the garden as the world. This imagery is also similar to the concept of the graveyard at the end of the play.
Hamlets father was king married to Queen Gertrude but Hamlet had to return home to attend his funeral. He was a loving son; mourning, only to figure out his mother (the queen) had already married once more. The Queen’s new husband is King Claudius who is Hamlets uncle and the deceased King’s brother. This betrayal was like none other in Hamlet’s eyes. He knew right anyway from a feeling that Claudius was responsible for King Hamlet’s death. Hamlet even worried and sometimes assumed that his mother was part of the planning or even killing of his father. Returning home immediately became about getting revenge on the people that hurt his family and even in some cases that meant his mother. Hamlet was a smart man and very cunning but in the end it doesn’t work out for anyone.
He has a lot of trouble in coming to terms with all of the evil that is around him in a corrupt world. As Hamlet said himself, "'Tis an unweeded garden that grows to seed; Things rank and gross in nature possess it merely." One wonders how Hamlet can interact as well with his environment as he does; he has said many times that life is full of evil and deceit. He says to Rosencrantz that the world is a prison, in fact, "a sizable one, in which there are many jails, cells, and dungeons."
Madness in William Shakespeare’s “Through this be madness, yet there is method in’t. ”(2.2.205-206). In William Shakespeare’s tragic play, Hamlet, this quote from Polonius shows that there is a reason for every action a person does. Polonius – as well as other minor characters – serve as self-absorbed individuals that contribute to the idea of Hamlets madness; so it is ironic that Shakespeare gives one of the most revealing lines to him, rather than the leading character, Hamlet.