Facing troubling times, many adolescence can contest to debating the value of facing their struggles in life and the tempting unknown of death. Facing the murder of his father and his mother’s hasty marriage to the murder, young Hamlet releases his inner struggles in his famous soliloquy. Through the use of contrasting diction, vivid imagery, and repetitive syntax Shakespeare portrays Hamlet’s conflicting thoughts and relatively unstable state of mind. The thoughts of young Hamlet contain specific diction that exemplify his fragile state. Overall the diction remains elevated; an attempt of Shakespeare to stay consistent with Hamlet’s aristocratic upbringing. Shakespeare repeatedly pairs particular words together to provide additional contrast to this life versus death debate. Choice words such as “suffer” and “fortune” as well as “coil” and “respect” demonstrate the opposing forces of life and death. This contrasting diction also builds tension as throughout the soliloquy the word choice becomes increasingly more negative. …show more content…
The “slings and arrows”, “whips and scorns”, and the “grunt and sweat” express the realistic and well-known burdens of living. These simple yet intense descriptions are purposeful to stick with the audience regarding the negative light in which Hamlet views his life. While the descriptions of life remain realistic, Shakespeare uses comparisons for death to emphasize the unknown parts of it. Comparing death to sleep brings a sense of familiarity, but adding in the fact that there is only a chance of dreaming peacefully- not a guarantee- emphasizes the terror of the unknown. Metaphorically, Shakespeare refers to death as an “undiscover’d country” in which no one returns from to share their experience. These two comparisons display Hamlet’s caution yet unsettling thoughts of
Hamlet commences off the verbalization with darkness and despair. Hamlet is contemplating life or death.
“The very conveyances of his lands will scarcely lie in this box, and must th’ inheritor himself have no more, ha?” Hamlet’s realization in 5.1.88 is one of great weight and resulted in more deep thought on the concept of death. Throughout Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” the subject is deeply considered and consistent breakthroughs and new realizations are revealed through Hamlet’s character. The primary evolution of Hamlet’s understanding stands with the coping, dealing with the finality of death, conflicts with morality and revenge in its intimate relationship with death as it applies to Hamlet.
This famous soliloquy offers a dark and deep contemplation of the nature of life and death. Hamlet’s contemplative, philosophical, and angry tones demonstrate the emotions all people feel throughout their lifetimes.
In this paper I will be analyzing and discussing how these four soliloquies reflect changes in Hamlet’s mental state; his
Language Techniques in Hamlet by William Shakespeare Shakespeare used a variety of language techniques throughout Hamlet,
Hamlet’s psychological influence demonstrates his dread of both death and life. In Hamlet’s famous soliloquy, “To be or not to be” (3.1.64), he refers the “be” to life and further asks “whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” (3.1.65.66). By this, Hamlet is asking himself the question of whether to live or die.
Shakespeare’s Hamlet is arguably one of the best plays known to English literature. It presents the protagonist, Hamlet, and his increasingly complex path through self discovery. His character is of an abnormally complex nature, the likes of which not often found in plays, and many different theses have been put forward about Hamlet's dynamic disposition. One such thesis is that Hamlet is a young man with an identity crisis living in a world of conflicting values.
Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a tragic play about murder, betrayal, revenge, madness, and moral corruption. It touches upon philosophical ideas such as existentialism and relativism. Prince Hamlet frequently questions the meaning of life and the degrading of morals as he agonizes over his father’s murder, his mother’s incestuous infidelity, and what he should or shouldn’t do about it. At first, he is just depressed; still mourning the loss of his father as his mother marries his uncle. After he learns about the treachery of his uncle and the adultery of his mother, his already negative countenance declines further. He struggles with the task of killing Claudius, feeling burdened about having been asked to find a solution to a situation that was forced upon him.Death is something he struggles with as an abstract idea and as relative to himself. He is able to reconcile with the idea of death and reality eventually.
Shakespeare’s play Hamlet is a complex and ambiguous public exploration of key human experiences surrounding the aspects of revenge, betrayal and corruption. The Elizabethan play is focused centrally on the ghost’s reoccurring appearance as a symbol of death and disruption to the chain of being in the state of Denmark. The imagery of death and uncertainty has a direct impact on Hamlet’s state of mind as he struggles to search for the truth on his quest for revenge as he switches between his two incompatible values of his Christian codes of honour and humanist beliefs which come into direct conflict. The deterioration of the diseased state is aligned with his detached relationship with all women as a result of Gertrude’s betrayal to King Hamlet which makes Hamlet question his very existence and the need to restore the natural order of kings. Hamlet has endured the test of time as it still identifies with a modern audience through the dramatized issues concerning every human’s critical self and is a representation of their own experience of the bewildering human condition, as Hamlet struggles to pursuit justice as a result of an unwise desire for revenge.
In his tragedy Hamlet, William Shakespeare explores and analyzes the concept of mortality and the inevitability of death through the development of Hamlet’s understanding and ideology regarding the purpose for living. Through Hamlet’s obsessive fascination in understanding the purpose for living and whether death is the answer, Shakespeare analyzes and interprets the meaning of different elements of mortality and death: The pain death causes to others, the fading of evidence of existence through death, and the reason for living. While due to the inevitable and unsolvable mystery of the uncertainty of death, as no being will ever empirically experience death and be able to tell the tale, Shakespeare offers an answer to the reason for living through an analysis of Hamlet’s development in understanding death.
From this play we learn of the difficulty associated with taking a life as Hamlet agonises as to how and when he should kill Claudius and furthermore whether he should take his own life. Hamlet being a logical thinker undergoes major moral dilemma as he struggles to make accurate choices. From the internal conflict that the playwright expresses to us it is evident that it can kill someone, firstly mentally then physically. The idea of tragedy is explored in great detail through conflict where the playwright’s main message is brought across to the audience; Shakespeare stresses to his audience the point that conflict be it internal or external it can bring upon the downfall of great people and in turn have them suffer a tragic fate. It is Shakespeare’s aim to show us the complexity of man and that moral decisions are not easily made.
Hamlet is one of the most often-performed and studied plays in the English language. The story might have been merely a melodramatic play about murder and revenge, butWilliam Shakespeare imbued his drama with a sensitivity and reflectivity that still fascinates audiences four hundred years after it was first performed. Hamlet is no ordinary young man, raging at the death of his father and the hasty marriage of his mother and his uncle. Hamlet is cursed with an introspective nature; he cannot decide whether to turn his anger outward or in on himself. The audience sees a young man who would be happiest back at his university, contemplating remote philosophical matters of life and death. Instead, Hamlet is forced to engage death on a visceral level, as an unwelcome and unfathomable figure in his life. He cannot ignore thoughts of death, nor can he grieve and get on with his life, as most people do. He is a melancholy man, and he can see only darkness in his future—if, indeed, he is to have a future at all. Throughout the play, and particularly in his two most famous soliloquies, Hamlet struggles with the competing compulsions to avenge his father’s death or to embrace his own. Hamlet is a man caught in a moral dilemma, and his inability to reach a resolution condemns himself and nearly everyone close to him.
The perfection of Hamlet’s character has been called in question - perhaps by those who do not understand it. The character of Hamlet stands by itself. It is not a character marked by strength of will or even of passion, but by refinement of thought and sentiment. Hamlet is as little of the hero as a man can be. He is a young and princely novice, full of high enthusiasm and quick sensibility - the sport of circumstances, questioning with fortune and refining on his own feelings, and forced from his natural disposition by the strangeness of his situation.
William Shakespeare's Hamlet is, at heart, a play about suicide. Though it is surrounded by a fairly standard revenge plot, the play's core is an intense psychodrama about a prince gone mad from the pressures of his station and his unrequited love for Ophelia. He longs for the ultimate release of killing himself - but why? In this respect, Hamlet is equivocal - he gives several different motives depending on the situation. But we learn to trust his soliloquies - his thoughts - more than his actions. In Hamlet's own speeches lie the indications for the methods we should use for its interpretation.
Hamlet is the best known tragedy in literature today. Here, Shakespeare exposes Hamlet’s flaws as a heroic character. The tragedy in this play is the result of the main character’s unrealistic ideals and his inability to overcome his weakness of indecisiveness. This fatal attribute led to the death of several people which included his mother and the King of Denmark. Although he is described as being a brave and intelligent person, his tendency to procrastinate prevented him from acting on his father’s murder, his mother’s marriage, and his uncle’s ascension to the throne.