Understanding the Mind of Hamlet with His Soliloquies

Understanding the Mind of Hamlet with His Soliloquies

The term soliloquy is a literary or dramatic form of discourse, within

which a character talks to himself and reveals his inner thoughts

without addressing a listener.

Hamlet uses soliloquies to express his feelings towards his dead

father and self loathing to the reader of the play but to none of the

characters within it. Hamlet has a complex character and it is

important for the audience to be able to understand Hamlet’s feelings

on the themes of the play without him having to explain them to

another character. Hamlets three soliloquies are guide of how he is

feeling at different points of the play.

In the first line of Hamlet’s first soliloquy he uses the term

‘sullied flesh’ referring to himself, describing him to have impure

flesh in a physical sense because he is made of the same flesh as his

mother. He also wishes death upon himself, ‘flesh, would melt’ this

metaphor of melting dew is an indication of his destructive nature. He

seems to feel like he is beyond repair so like a thaw melting and

being freed into dew he wants to set himself free of his body.

These lines show suicidal tendencies but the next few lines, ‘His

cannon ‘gainst self- slaughter. O God, O God’ show that Hamlet’s

religious views play strongly on his mind. This sentence contains

enjambment which makes it sound poetic and regal, which underlines the

importance God has to Hamlet, it also has iambic pentameter to grab

the attention of the audience.

Hamlet has an obvious objection to Claudius, his uncle and

metaphorically describes his relationship with Gertrude as ‘an

unweeded garden…rank,...

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...r not to be that is the question’ he is

really questioning the idea’s of suicide again, which he spoke of in

the first soliloquy maybe here with more vigour, as his religious

righteousness is not mentioned. The rhetorical question he asks

himself followed by metaphoric images of life and death as ‘a sea of

troubles [life]…and end of heartache [death]’ are showing his thoughts

of being stuck between coping with life being melancholy but too

cowardly to perform upon these feelings or death, which possibly would

end these hardships.

Studying Hamlets soliloquies reveals key understanding to the

intriguing and complex mind of Hamlet, through them the main themes of

the play are unravelled, for it is within the soliloquies that Hamlets

motives for his later actions in the play, such as murdering Claudius

are confirmed.