Unhinged Emotions

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Can emotions sometimes get the best of a person? Can one ever get too emotional? In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, multiple ways one can go about characterizing Hamlet. Soliloquy Two and Soliloquy Five characterize Hamlet as a man driven by his emotions showing that one's emotional state can alter one's decisions drastically.
Both soliloquies contain Hamlet's exasperated feelings towards his inaction. In Soliloquy Two Hamlet becomes irritated that he has done nothing for his cause saying that he “can say nothing; no, not for a king/upon whose property and most dear life/a damn'd defeat was made” (21-3). He cannot say that he has tried to seek revenge because he has nothing to show for it. Hamlet, using a simile, goes as far as to compare himself to a whore—“this is most brave/that I, son of a dear king murder'd…must, like a whore unpack my heart with words”--to get his feelings across (36-9). He thinks that all he can do is talk about his plans and not go through with them. Likewise, in Soliloquy Five Hamlet becomes tired of the lack of revenge plans....

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