Throughout his plays, Shakespeare often uses a soliloquy for his main characters, in order to expand and strengthen their characterization. Shakespeare usually includes elements of that play’s historical social customs, in order to give the reader a greater understanding of why his characters feel or think in a particular way. For Hamlet, Shakespeare references Medieval social customs about death in Hamlet’s first soliloquy so that both Hamlet’s characterization begins and the reader understands Hamlet’s desire for death, conflicting emotions, and grieving pain.
At first, Hamlet describes his sadness, not just for his father’s death but also for the fact that the kingdom only mourned for his father in less than two months. He starts by saying,
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After his initial cry for death, Hamlet continues to detail his sadness towards the kingdom when he describes it as, “an unweeded garden that grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature…” Hamlet uses a metaphor to compare the kingdom to an unkempt garden so that he reveals his displeasure about the current situation of the kingdom and to give the reader a sense of Hamlet’s suspicion. He also uses this metaphor to coldly comment on the fact that the kingdom forgot about his father once the royal marriage took place. This betrayal towards his father only adds to Hamlet’s grief and heightens his present sadness. Finally, he reveals his final reason for his sadness by describing the passionate love …show more content…
First, he recalls how she only, “follow’d my poor father’s body Like Niobe, all tears…” for just, “a little month…” but as he continues, he reveals that she, “married with my uncle…Within a month, Ere yet…tears had left…her…eyes…She married.” For Medieval times, the usual custom for a king’s death includes the wife and the kingdom entering a mourning period for a year; the wife would never enter a public event and stay in her home, mourning for her late husband. Hamlet’s mother however, only mourned for less than two months and stopped the mourning of the kingdom when she and Hamlet’s uncle decided to marry. At first, Hamlet feels sorrowful that she only mourned for a month, but as he continues to divulge exposition, his anger rises as he faces the fact that his mother married his uncle and gave hardly any time to his father. Not only does he feel pain from grief over his father’s death, but he also feels pain from his mother’s betrayal. He also must, “hold my tongue!” since he alone mourns for the late king. With the grief over his father, the pain over the betrayal and staying silent, Hamlet feels the desire for death so that he may move onto Heaven and seek a better experience than what he currently lives
When a parent dies, you need someone to fall back on. This person helps you get through it and make you feel loved. If you do not have someone there to help you through this time, you often turn to other things like acting crazy and wanting to take your own life because you feel as if you are not loved and you want to get rid of the pain. Hamlet loved his father and his death took a big part of his life away from him. His mother, Gertrude, needed to spend time with him, to show him he was loved and someone cared about him. Gertrude was not there for Hamlet the way she should have been, and because of this he began to act like he was crazy. Instead of spending time with her son, Gertrude was busy getting married to the late Kings brother Claudius.
In the soliloquy, Shakespeare accentuates the shared characteristics between Hamlet and a submissive servant. Hamlet submits to his cowardice and falls victim to his tendency to reflect on his profound thoughts instead of acting upon them. Additionally, he accuses himself as a troublesome scoundrel. He views himself as a criminal although he had not done anything indictable yet. This metaphor introduces Hamlet’s perception in his current emotional state to the audience.
From past experiences in ones life, whether it be the death of a long aged gold fish to a deceased elder, one knows the pain and suffering that goes on afterwards. For one to finally move on and continue life without a tear in their eyes may take a while, yet having that immense step means to put the emotions aside and live life. Hamlet's father was murdered, and he soon sees his mother move on so quickly and marries his uncle, to continue being the queen. Hamlet's love for his father does not fade away within a two month span like his mother; he refuses to accept the fact that his father was killed, instead of a natural death. Because of this, Hamlet does not know what to do with his life. He mentions "O, that this too too sallied flesh would melt,/ Or that the Everlasting had not fixed/ His canon `against self-slaughter" (129-132). Immediately does Hamlet questions the existence of his own life, as he feels the need to melt and disappear, ultimately referring to suicide. The problem we face...
...r. Hamlet speaks to Horatio quietly, almost serenely, with the unexultant calm which characterizes the end of the long, inner struggle of grief. He has looked at the face of death in his father’s ghost, he has now endured death and loss in all the human beings he has loved, and he now accepts those losses as an inevitable part of his own condition. “He states, “The readiness is all” suggesting what is perhaps the last and most difficult task of mourning, his own readiness to die” (Bloom 135). Hamlet recognizes and accepts his own death.
Lastly, Hamlet accepts that he will not be able to carry out the roots of being a king as he is dying. He says to Horatio, “I do prophesy th’ election lights/on Fortinbras; he has my dying voice” (5.2.380-381). Just as a person has a will testimony before they pass away, so to does Hamlet, as he desires Fortinbras to become King. One can see that Hamlet fulfills the last stage of the grief cycle, acceptance. Through the death of Hamlet’s father, Shakespeare shows how one tragedy can lead to many stages of grief as well as the downfall of the character.
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.
Any great king must be compassionate, and Hamlet is the embodiment of compassion. He shows this through his great sadness after his father’s death. Unlike many others in the play, Hamlet continues to mourn long after his father’s death. In fact, he never stops thinking of his father, even though his mother rushed into a marriage with Claudius a mere two months after her husband’s funeral. Also, Hamlet shows the reader his compassion through
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.
Sadness is the first emotion that is usually related to death. In the play, Hamlet does not try to disguise his sorrow after his father’s murder. This sadness is intermingled with disgust for the others around him who moved on with their grief and criticized him for continuing to mourn. After being criticized by Gertrude and Claudius, Hamlet chooses to talk to open space to reveal his feelings (1.2.129-158). Hamlet clearly shows the sadness in his heart, as well as the idea of bitterness. He continually attacks his mother’s quick grieving: “O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason / would have mourned longer” (1.2.150-151). This sadness continues in his fake madness, seeping into conversations that show his need for escape. In a confrontation with Polonius, Hamlet ends the con...
In the beginning of Hamlet, the Prince behaves as any normal person would following the death of a loved one. Not only is this a loved one, but an extra special someone; it is his loving father whom he adored. Hamlet is grief stricken, depressed, and even angry that his mother remarried so soon after his father’s death. Having witnessed how his father had treated his mother with great love and respect, Hamlet cannot understand how his mother could shorten the grieving period so greatly to marry someone like Uncle Claudius. He is incapable of rationalizing her deeds and he is obsessed by her actions.
Clearly this shows Hamlet grieving his father’s death while showing hostility to the king and queen for being so deathly cold about the previous king’s death. Also the readers can also see in Hamlet’s opening dialogue, it shows that he still has not come to terms with his father’s death and is still in the state of shock when we first see him.
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.
Hamlet dealt with trauma when it came to dealing with the death of his one and only father also known as King Hamlet. Hamlet was also deeply devastated that Claudius, his uncle, married his mother. Hamlet was devastated, and full of grief by his father’s death and his behavior showed it. At the beginning of the play, Hamlet came out crying full of grief as he appeared alone on stage in front of the audience. "Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt / Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!” (Act 1, scene 2) Hamlet respected his father very much knowing that he was good to his people and was overall a good king. In the play, Hamlet’s behavior and grief became more serious because it came to the point where he felt like no one cared about his father’s death, and it seemed as if he was the only one grieving from the tragedy. A
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.
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.