Why Is Hamlet's First Soliloquy

Shakespeare builds and maintains the tension in Hamlet’s soliloquy through tone. The soliloquy begins in a depressing tone with the use of imagery when Hamlet contemplates on committing suicide, “Throw and resolve itself into dew” (1.2, 130). Shakespeare then shifts to a frustrated tone with the use of an exclamation point (syntax), “Seem to me all the uses of the world!” (1.2, 134), gives an idea of how angered Hamlet is with his mother’s incest. Hamlet’s soliloquy then shifts to a somber tone as he characterizes his father who was, “So excellent a king” (1.2, 139) that was so kind to Hamlet's mother, that the King would not allow, “...the winds of heaven Visit her [Gertrude’s] face too roughly.”

Hamlet begins his soliloquy in act two scene two by regaining the audiences’ attention and making himself comfortable to fully express his true feelings. Next he starts to describe himself as a “peasant slave” denoting how poor and low he feels to the point where he is not far from being completely worthless. Hamlet further expresses that it’s horrible that a person should be forced to play his character; even in a fictitious story. How could a human being put their pride to the side in order to live a life like mine filled with so much sorrow? It should tear their soul or literally kill them to reenact what I went through. This person must shed tears during their rendition and speak with a shattered speech pattern; taking as if his words were

Shakespeare uses soliloquy as a dramatic tool to unveil the man behind the disguise. The true nature of the protagonist, Hamlet, is riddled by false appearances and deliberate attempts to deceive characters within the play, mainly characterised by his conscious intention “To put on an antic disposition”. Whilst the audience is disorientated by Hamlet’s erratic moods and inconsistent behaviour – the alternation between passive inaction, failing to act when he has an opportunity to avenge and kill Claudius whilst he prays, and volatile linguistic attacks in Gertrude’s chamber – the soliloquies provide consistency. They are intimate, private, confessional accounts in which Hamlet does not have to ‘act’ as he does around other characters.

In Shakespeare’s “How all occasions do inform against me” soliloquy, Hamlet contemplates how his actions measure up to his thoughts after seeing Fortinbras army near Elsinore. Fortinbras acts quickly, pondering the consequences of his actions much less than Hamlet who tends to think but not act. Hamlet comes to the realization that his thoughts are worthless without the actions to back them and sitting around thinking about what could be is a waste of time when he could be avenging his father.

In this example Hamlet compares himself to Hercules. To better explain this example we should define who is Hercules, Hercules is a divine hero from the Roman times, he was the son of Zeus and Alcmene and the foster son of Amphitryon. The servants of Zeus and Alcmene with instructions to expose him in a certain field and left him there. Hamlet is saying that even though that his uncle married his mother and became king, that he will never be Hamlets father and that he could never live up to his expectations. Another simile that Hamlet uses in his soliloquy is “ With which she followed my poor father’s body; Like Niobe, all

Having your father die is bad enough, but to have your mother marry your uncle, within a few weeks of your father’s death? Then to see the ghost of your dead father. That would drive anyone a little insane, but maybe not to the extent that everyone thought Hamlet was acting. Hamlet is torn between acting sane and letting everyone else see him as insane.

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”

“To be or not to be— that is the question.” An exceptionally recognized phrase amid many centuries, cultures, places, and people. This short excerpt derives from the Shakespearean play, Hamlet: The Tragedy of the Prince of Denmark. Originally, this passage was displayed in one of the soliloquies of the play. Defined as “an act of speaking one's thoughts aloud when by oneself or regardless of any hearers, especially by a character in a play”, a soliloquy is crucial to furthering the plot and connecting the audience with the speaker. William Shakespeare reveals the true desires and intentions of Hamlet, the main character of Hamlet: The Tragedy of the Prince of Denmark, within the protagonist’s soliloquies. Even Hamlet, one of the most complex characters in literary history, can be simplified through the use of a soliloquy.

Hamlet’s first soliloquy in Act 1, Scene 2 is an incredibly passionate and shocking passage. The passage is contrasting the artificial actions and dialogues that Hamlet illustrates to his uncle Claudius through the entire play. The soliloquy reveals Hamlet’s melancholia and the reason for his anger, hatred, pain, and grief by explaining how miserable his life seems. He misses his father deeply; he is disgusted by his mother and uncle’s marriage, and feels horrible about his whole situation wishing he was dead. Shakespeare is using different types of literal in Hamlet’s soliloquy to connect with the audience by revealing indirect information like juxtaposition, metaphor, and imagery.

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

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!”

Hamlet’s soliloquy also advances the plot of the play and intrigues the audience. In the beginning of the speech Hamlet beings to panic and doubt himself. Hamlet says to

Shakespeare’s Hamlet depicts the struggle of a graduate student after the sudden death of his father and marriage of his mother, Gertrude, to his uncle, Claudius. In his soliloquy, Hamlet discusses his inner turmoil over the knowledge that his uncle, who has assumed the throne of Denmark, is responsible for the death of his father. Shakespeare utilizes conventional literary techniques such as metaphor, allusion, and repetition alongside his traditional iambic pentameter in order to enhance the meaning of the passage and offer further characterization of his protagonist. Through the aforementioned various literary techniques, Shakespeare develops a tone of despair, which furthers Hamlet’s internal conflicts within the passage.

We can see the dramatic differences in Hamlet’s facial expression and tone of voice when he starts to talk about Claudius and his mother. Hamlet is revolted by him, he is “a mildewed ear/ Blasting his wholesome brother.” We can hear the disgust in Hamlet’s words as he describes his malevolent uncle and this shows the distorted relationship between them. Finally he turns to his mother. His words are full of deep hatred and utter contempt for her. He asks her how she could have replaced her perfect husband with this foul man: “Could you

He begins pointing out the differences between the two, painting his father in a positive light and Claudius is a negative one. His descriptions of the two are quite visual and are mixed with references to Roman mythology. In the original work by Shakespeare, Hamlet uses qualities that are God-like to explain how his father, in comparison, was the exponentially greater man of the