The Use of Soliloquy in William Shakespeare's Hamlet
The first Soliloquy of Hamlet appears in act one scene two. It falls after Claudius and Gertrude announce their marriage to the kingdom, and before Horatio and Marcellus tell Hamlet about seeing the ghost. Shakespeare loads this Soliloquy with stylistic devices that help introduce themes, show conflict, show character, and set the tone.
We first see a metaphor comparing Hamlet's flesh to melting ice. This indicates how depressed he feels. He wishes he could melt away and die, but he doesn't kill himself because it is against the law of the church. The apostrophe "O God, God," along with the personification of the world show the desperation and sadness of Hamlet. "Tis an unweeded garden," is the beginning of a metaphor that extends throughout the book. Shakespeare is comparing Denmark (in what is more seeable in later soliloquies) to Eden. This is the beginning of a major theme throughout Hamlet. That is the theme of corruption, and how it spreads.
Next we see that how great of a King Hamlet Sr. was compared to Claudius. This is done through the metaphor "Hyperion to a satyr." Shakespeare also uses alludes saying that the King would shield the winds from heaven from Gertrude's face. This displays the reader how loving a husband he was. Then a rhetorical question is use to show how painful all these memories are to him. Now we see a series of imagery and allusions of how Gertrude acted toward the King. To indication how short a period of time it was between the Kings death and Gertrude's remarriage we see an allusion of her funeral shoes not be old. Also a metaphor is used comparing her to a Niobe at the funeral, and an allusion saying a beast would mourn longer than she did. These two literary devices work together to help start another important theme in Hamlet. This is the theme of appearance vs. reality. Gertrude appeared to be mournful and sorrowed at her husband's death, but yet she marries his brother a month later.
Shakespeare then takes two metaphors (Hamlet to Hercules and the King to Claudius) and compares them. This shows how different and superior the King was to his brother. We see another allusion of Gertrude marring while the salt from her "Unrighteous tears," are still on her face.
After the death of Old Hamlet and Gertrude’s remarriage to Claudius, Hamlet feels extremely angry and bitter. “How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable / Seem to me all the uses of this world!” (1.2.133-134). Due to the death of his father, he is already in a state of despair and the lack of sympathy that his mother has towards his sorrow does not aid him in recovering from this stage of grief. “Good Hamlet, cast thy knighted colour off, / And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark” (1.2.68-69). Hamlet is struggling to accept the fashion in which Gertrude is responding to the death of Old Hamlet; she seems quite content with her new life with Claudius, which is a difficult concept for him to accept as after the d...
This essay will thoroughly delineate the character of King Claudius in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, show his place in the drama, and interpret his character -- with the assistance of literary critics.
The soliloquy is a literary device that is employed to unconsciously reveal an actor's thoughts to the audience. In William Shakespeare's, Hamlet, Hamlet's soliloquy in Act II, ii, (576-634) depicts his arrival at a state of vengeful behaviour through an internal process. Hamlet moves through states of depression and procrastination as he is caught up in the aftermath of the murder of his father and the marriage of his mother to his uncle. The soliloquy serves to effectively illustrate the inner nature of Hamlet's character and develop the theme of revenge.
In William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” there are four major soliloquies that reflect the character of Hamlet.
Shakespeare uses soliloquies in his play as a means of communicating the thoughts of a character without revealing them to the other characters. I will investigate soliloquies because they are commonly found in literature, but not in every day speech; therefore, I want to have a better understanding of how a soliloquy can benefit the play’s plot rather than the use of conversation between two or more characters. The three plays that we can see the effect of Shakespeare’s soliloquies on the plot are Jacques in As You Like it, Hamlet in Hamlet, and Macbeth in Macbeth. In each of these plays, the subtopics that I will discuss are: how a specific soliloquy reveals the character’s inner thought, how these lines differ from the views society has
In Hamlet’s first soliloquy (ll. 1.2.129-159), Shakespeare uses a biblical lexicon, apostrophes, and depictions of corporeal decay to show Hamlet’s preoccupation with the fate of a person after death.
Gertrude finds herself in the middle of this family conflict as mother and peacemaker to a newly blended family ("Frailty thy name is woman", n.d.). In the first Act, the Ghost of Hamlet’s father provides Hamlet with the details of his untimely death and the devious acts of his uncle Claudius. This event, coupled with the hasty marriage of his mother to his uncle, causes much of the emotional turmoil and melancholy perceived by the protagonist of this play. Hamlet’s exclamation “Frailty thy name is woman!”(1.2.146) in his first soliloquy demonstrates that his opinion of Gertrude has become tainted. It has been argued that his use of the word “frailty” referred to a flaw in her entire personality, a weakness; it is this weakness that drives Gertrude to an incestuous marriage that disgusts her son and keeps him from his rightf...
Hamlet is speaking about his father’s death and Gertrude marrying his uncle, Claudius. Hamlet feels as if his mother has acted too fast in her decision to marry Claudius. Hamlet considers Claudius as nothing compared to his father. Hamlet is...
Claudius begins his speech with an acknowledgement of Hamlet’s death and his own marriage to Gertrude. Claudius claims that the “green” memory of his “dear brother’s death” “befitted” Denmark to contract into “one brow of woe” (1.2). Despite Claudius’ affectionate reference to Hamlet, his hypocrisy is transparent. The colour imagery reveals the freshness of Hamlet’s death. The metaphor used suggests the kingdom is expected to unite and share the grief over its loss but the diction in “befitted” hints Claudius disapproval of expected mourning rites, causing the audience to doubt his sincerity. Furthermore, Claudius adds that “discretion fought with nature” causing him to think of Hamlet together with a “remembrance of [himself]” (1.2). The metaphorical conflict between “discretion” and “nature” contrasts Claudius’ hasty marriage to the expected mourning after Hamlet’s death. Moreover, in Claudius’ statement, the dependen...
Hamlet is the son of Queen Gertrude, this type of parent and child conflicts are somewhat common in some of Shakespeare’s plays. The events surrounding these characters must be taken into account as we watch the attitudes and personalities of Gertrude and Hamlet change as the play progresses. They have their own unique places in the story but do not always mesh well together when thrown into a conflict. Throughout the play hamlet struggles to keep his sanity. This is especially apparent after his father’s ghost visits him. The ghost tells him that his father was murdered by his uncle Claudius, who is the curre...
Hamlet’s first soliloquy takes place in Act 1 scene 2. In his first soliloquy Hamlet lets out all of his inner feelings revealing his true self for the first time. Hamlet’s true self is full of distaste, anger, revenge, and is very much different from the artificial persona that he pretends to be anytime else. Overall, Hamlet’s first soliloquy serves to highlight and reveal Hamlet’s melancholy as well as his reasons for feeling such anguish. This revelation in Hamlet’s persona lays the groundwork for establishing the many themes in the play--suicide, revenge, incest, madness, corruption, and mortality.
During the first act of William Shakespeare’s tragedy, Hamlet, Shakespeare uses metaphors, imagery, and allusion in Hamlet’s first soliloquy to express his internal thoughts on the corruption of the state and family. Hamlet’s internal ideas are significant to the tragedy as they are the driving and opposing forces for his avenging duties; in this case providing a driving cause for revenge, but also a second-thought due to moral issues.
The lines open up with Hamlet complaining about life and trying to justify his suicidal thoughts. Shakespeare: “O that this too solid flesh would melt thaw and resolve itself into a dew”(I.ii.129-130). He describes the disorder in his world with a querulous tone and begins to become disappointed as well as doleful. Shakespeare writes: “That grows to seed, things rank and gross in nature possess it merely”(I.ii.136). Everything good in Denmark becomes corrupt because Claudius is king. Subsequently, his tone transitions into becoming sarcastic as well as reminiscent. Shakespeare writes: “So excellent a king…so loving to my mother”(I.ii.139-140). He elaborates on his mother and father’s passionate love. Although he explains this love with pride, he also describes his mother’s love with a more sardonic tone because she didn’t even wait until “ere those shoes {worn at funeral} were old” to forget about his father (I.ii.147). With this in mind, Hamlet describes Gertrude and Claudius’ marriage: “With such dexterity to incestuous sheets. It is not nor it cannot come to any good”(I.ii.157-158). In this quote, Hamlet expounds upon their incestual marriage and his ominous thought about Gertrude and Claudius’ fates.
Old Hamlet is killed by his brother Claudius. Only two months after her husband’s death a vulnerable Gertrude marries her husband’s brother Claudius. Gertrude’s weakness opens the door for Claudius to take the throne as the king of Denmark. Hamlet is outraged by this, he loses respect for his mother as he feels that she has rejected him and has taken no time to mourn her own husband’s death. One night old Hamlets ghost appears to prince Hamlet and tells him how he was poisoned by his own brother. Up until this point the kingdom of Denmark believed that old Hamlet had died of natural causes. As it was custom, prince Hamlet sought to avenge his father’s death. This leads Hamlet, the main character into a state of internal conflict as he agonises over what action and when to take it as to avenge his father’s death. Shakespeare’s play presents the reader with various forms of conflict which plague his characters. He explores these conflicts through the use of soliloquies, recurring motifs, structure and mirror plotting.
Authors and playwrights often use many literary elements to help aid the audience in a further understanding of their play. An element used frequently in the play Hamlet is the soliloquy. Soliloquies hold a significant role in any play. A soliloquy can be defined when a character speaks to themselves, essentially the audience, revealing their thoughts. The function and purpose of these soliloquies in the play Hamlet is for the audience to develop a further understanding of a character’s thoughts, to advance the storyline and create a general mood for the play.