Analysis Of Hamlet's First Soliloquy '

865 Words2 Pages

Hamlet’s Concern with Death
In Hamlet’s first soliloquy (ll. 1.2.129-159), Shakespeare uses a biblical lexicon, apostrophes, and depictions of corporeal decay to show Hamlet’s preoccupation with the fate of a person after death. Throughout the passage, Shakespeare uses a biblical lexicon that demonstrates Hamlet’s anxiety about the consequences of actions and, more specifically, of death. Hamlet first references “the Euerlasting” (l. 1.2.131) in the third line of the soliloquy. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) tells us that “Euerlasting” refers to God, but we might ask ourselves, why “Euerlasting?” Why not some other word? By choosing the word “the Euerlasting” for Hamlet’s speech, Shakespeare highlights the permanence of one’s fate. This …show more content…

1.2.141-142). The phrase “windes of heauen” connotes not only literal winds but also heaven’s forces in general, including punishment for sins. …show more content…

Hamlet says, “O God, O God” (l. 1.2.132), “Heauen and Earth” (l. 1.2.142), and finally, “O Heauen) (l. 1.2.150). Not only are these apostrophes part of the biblical lexicon employed throughout the passage, they also serve to depict Hamlet as calling out to God, in essence, praying. In this passage, the language does not suggest a prayer whose purpose is to praise God or to rejoice. Instead, the same language that suggests Hamlet’s preoccupation with the fate of the soul suggests that the prayer deals with a need for salvation. Interestingly, Shakespeare follows Hamlet’s first apostrophe addressing God with two sentences ending with question marks, both of which seem to be claims one would state, not ask: “How weary, stale, flat and vnprofitable / Seemes to me all the vses of this world? / Fie on’t?” (ll. 1.2.133-135). Similarly, a question also follows the second apostrophe: “Heauen and Earth / Must I remember: why she would hang on him, / As if encrease of Appetite had growne / By what is fed on; and yet within a month?” (ll. 1.2.142-145). The first question deals with the fate of the soul, specifically after “Selfe-slaughter” (l. 1.2.132), while the second deals with Hamlet’s own emotional fate, a fate in which he is forced to remember his mother’s

Show More
Related

  • Hamlet Literary Analysis - Stages of Grief

    1300 Words  | 3 Pages

    Hamlet throughout the play lives in a world of mourning. This bereavement route he experiences can be related to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s theory on this process. The death of Hamlet’s spirit can be traced through depression, denial and isolation, bargaining, anger, and acceptance. The natural sorrow and anger of Hamlet’s multiple griefs include all human frailty in their protest and sympathy and touch upon the deepest synapses of grief in our own lives, not only for those who have died, but for those, like ourselves, who are still alive. Hamlet’s experience of grief, and his recovery from it, is one it which we ourselves respond most deeply.

    Read More

  • The Gravedigger and the Inevitability of Death in Shakespeare's Hamlet

    1392 Words  | 3 Pages

    From the appearance of the Ghost at the start of the play to its bloody conclusion, Hamlet is pervaded with the notion of death. What better site for a comic interlude than a graveyard? However, this scene is not merely a bit of comic relief. Hamlet's encounter with the gravedigger serves as a forum for Shakespeare to elaborate on the nature of death and as a turning point in Hamlet's character. The structure and changing mood of the encounter serve to move Hamlet and the audience closer to the realization that death is inevitable and universal.

    Read More

  • Hamlet's Attitude Towards Death Research Paper

    1061 Words  | 3 Pages

    This is first seen in Act 5, when Hamlet’s impulsive attitude takes over him which results in the murder of Polonius. Hamlet stabs the carpet Polonius was hiding behind thinking it was Claudius. Hamlet feels no guilt from this action, “Thou wretched, intruding fool farewell” (3.5.33). Shakespeare included this quote to reveal Hamlet’s new impulsive attitude which causes Hamlet to feel more confident and comfortable with death. Another incident which intensifies Hamlet’s new view on death was his encounter with the gravediggers (5.1) Shakespeare reveals that Hamlet undergoes a type of epiphany when he sees the gravediggers brushing off skulls, he proclaims “Alexander died, Alexander was buried/ Alexander returned into dust, the dust is earth” (5.1.203-204). Shakespeare uses the Alexander the Great reference as a form to portray Hamlet’s new realization towards death. Once Hamlet realizes that everyone dies and everyone ends up in the same place no matter how important they were Hamlet gets a new sudden confidence towards death once he realizes this. As the play comes to an end Shakespeare reveals Hamlet’s matured, confident view on death. Shakespeare shows this through Hamlet’s conversation with Horatio. It is clear when Hamlet says, “If it be now, ’tis not to come, if it be not to come, it will be now/ If it be not now, yet it will come/ The readiness is all” (5.2.511-513). Here, Hamlet finds a new acceptance for death and it’s uncertainty, due to the fact that death is inevitable. After all the events Hamlet has undergone he is so familiar with death that by now, it no longer scares him. He was come to terms with the thought. By the end of the play, Hamlet’s whole perspective of death has evolved immensely from the beginning of the

    Read More

  • Analysis of the Tone of the To Be or Not to Be Soliloquy in Hamlet

    644 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Life And Death In Brave New World Essay

    1009 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the beginning of the play Hamlet's view of death is mournful but, as the play continues he begins to think of death as this incredibly terrifying concept, this is clear when he states “To die,to sleep-- to sleep, perchance to dream […] But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country of whose bourn” (Shakespeare III i

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Hamlet's Soliloquy

    691 Words  | 2 Pages

    The interpretation of Hamlet’s, To Be or Not to Be soliloquy, from the Shakespearean classic of the same name, is an important part of the way that the audience understands an interpretation of the play. Although the words are the same, the scene is presented by the actors who portray Hamlet can vary between versions of the play. These differences no matter how seemingly miniscule affect the way in which someone watching the play connects with the title character.

    Read More

  • Hamlet's View on Death in Hamlet by William Shakespeare

    853 Words  | 2 Pages

    Hamlet's View on Death in Hamlet by William Shakespeare Hamlet is scared because he does not know what happens after you die. He is not afraid to die, but he will not kill himself because he is afraid that he will go to hell. In Act 3, scene 3, Hamlet shows his belief in the Bible by not killing his father while he is in prayer. He says, HAMLET “A villain kills my father; and for that. I, his sole son, send this same villain.

    Read More

  • The Meaning Of Death In Hamlet

    1188 Words  | 3 Pages

    "To be or not to be? That is the question." (Shakespeare 57) Hamlet opens his famous soliloquy with the question whether it is harder to live and endure the many vicissitudes of life or to die and face the unknown territory of death. He wondered what happens after one dies, and what awaits each of us. The uncertainty in knowing what is to come of us after death, led Hamlet to believe that fear is generated by the unknown, for it makes people fear the things they cannot see and control. He reasoned that if our certitude of what happens after death is absolute, then people would willingly bear the grief that life so kindly offers. Hamlet raises the following philosophical question, is it harder

    Read More

  • Hamlet's First Soliloquy Analysis

    1245 Words  | 3 Pages

    Hamlet is left so distraught by his father 's death and his mother’s quick remarriage of his father’s brother that he wishes to die. Hamlet begins his soliloquy with a metaphor that shows his desire for death: “Oh, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, / Thaw,

    Read More

  • Hamlet: The Bewildering Human Condition

    1242 Words  | 3 Pages

    Death threads its way through the entirety of Hamlet, from the opening scene’s confrontation with a dead man’s ghost to the blood bath of the final scene, which occurs as a result of the disruption of the natural order of Denmark. Hamlet is a man with suicidal tendencies which goes against his Christian beliefs as he is focused on the past rather than the future, which causes him to fall into the trap of inaction on his path of revenge. Hamlet’s moral dilemma stems from the ghost’s appearance as “a spirit of health or a goblin damned”, making Hamlet decide whether it brings with...

    Read More

  • An Analysis of Mortality in Hamlet by William Shakespeare

    2189 Words  | 5 Pages

    Shakespeare shows the ideology of death internalizing within Hamlet first with Hamlet’s emotions following the death of Old Hamlet. In the scene in which Hamlet is introduced, Hamlet is portrayed as an embodiment of death, dressed in “suits of a solemn black”(1.2.81) and has “dejected havior of the visage”(1.2.84). Hamlet’s physical representation as death signifies his lack of desire to continue living himself, being detached and discontent with the world around him. Hamlet, in his first soliloquy, opens by stating, “Sullied flesh would melt/Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,/ Or that the Everlasting had not fixed/His canon ‘gainst Self Slaughter!”(1.2.133-135). This is significant, as it shows Hamlet’s full willingness to commit suicide and end Hamlet’s internal pain, if not for suicide being a sin under religion. The reason for Hamlet’s desire for death and his dis...

    Read More

  • Hamlet, the Existentialist

    1068 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Theme of Death in William Shakespeare's Hamlet

    959 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, the protagonist, Hamlet is obsessed with the idea of death, and during the course of the play he contemplates death from numerous perspectives. He ponders the physical aspects of death, as seen with Yoricks's skull, his father's ghost, as well as the dead bodies in the cemetery. Hamlet also contemplates the spiritual aspects of the afterlife with his various soliloquies. Emotionally Hamlet is attached to death with the passing of his father and his lover Ophelia. Death surrounds Hamlet, and forces him to consider death from various points of view.

    Read More

  • Social and Psychological Influences on Hamlet

    772 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Suicide In Hamlet

    1081 Words  | 3 Pages

    He is always worrying that he will be sent to hell for committing a sin. He believes in God and he believes in a heaven. Since Hamlet believes in both heaven and our God, he is not able to commit suicide and depart from this world. He wishes that he could die, but at the same time he knows that he must live. God decides where and when people die and his judgment is supposed to be final. Humans just think that they can end their lives and they 'll be alright with that. But it is God who determines when life is brought in and out of the world. Therefore, this is partly why Hamlet didn’t commit suicide.

    Read More

More about Analysis Of Hamlet's First Soliloquy '

Open Document