Investigating the Function of the Main Soliloquies in Shakespeare's Hamlet

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Investigating the Function of the Main Soliloquies in Shakespeare's Hamlet

“Hamlet” is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare in around 1601

when Queen Elizabeth the first was on the throne. In the play we see

the royal court of Denmark becoming more and more corrupt with ghosts,

murder, madness and incest, culminating in the highest death toll in

any of Shakespeare’s plays. The lead character of Hamlet is an

intellectual whose aim in the play is to avenge his father’s death by

killing his uncle, the king. However his tendency to think too much

and inability to carry out his actions gets in the way of him bringing

the king to justice, and this hesitancy is a major recurring theme in

the play. At the time of Hamlet first being performed, the royal

family of England would have been similar to the celebrities of today,

and the public of the time would have loved any scandals or gossip

involving royalty. This made Hamlet very popular with the audience

watching the plays, and even though this particular royal family was

that of Denmark, the public would have loved to imagine that the same

sort of scandal and excitement could happen amongst the royalty of

this country.

This Essay will be focusing on Hamlet’s soliloquies, which are a main

feature of the play. A soliloquy is a section of dialogue that is

spoken by an actor that is alone on the stage. This not only reveals

the characters thoughts and feelings and keeps the audience involved,

it also moves the plot on and re-caps on what has happened.

Soliloquies also add to the dramatic impact of Hamlet’s character, and

are essential to the plot of the play.

The first of Hamlet’s s...

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...elp convey his

feelings to the audience. The soliloquies are especially effective as

they help the audience keep up with the plot of the play and give them

an insight into how the main character is feeling.

The soliloquies are important in this particular play because they let

us see Hamlet’s thoughts. Hamlet is an intellectual rather than a man

of action, so it is crucial that we are let inside Hamlets head to

understand what he is thinking. If it weren’t for the soliloquies, the

audience would have no idea what hamlet’s intentions were when he was

commissioning the play, or when he was contemplating suicide, or when

he was putting off the murder of Claudius those numerous times!

To understand the plot of hamlet you must first understand Hamlet’s

character, and that is exactly what his soliloquies enable us to do.

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