Juxtaposition In Hamlet Essay

The character of Hamlet is portrayed as a melancholy intellectual who is driven in to madness due to learning of his uncle’s betrayal of his father. Shrouded in mystery, Hamlet likes to keep the reader and the other characters of the play guessing whether or not heis is sane and righteous in his actions. Hamlet is a character that is stricken with grief, plagued by disgust towards his mother, and dwelling on existentialism. These problems contribute to the madness that Hamlet has and drives the play in a way that lets you see the vaguest insight to why he is behaving as he is. Even so, because of his monologues and soliloquies the play also seems to allow open interpretation of Hamlet’s character. This openness of Hamlet’s character allows the other characters roles to shine by showing juxtaposition to how the other characters in the play interpret his actions

“O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd, his canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God! How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden, that grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature, possess it merely.(I.ii.vi) It is shown that Hamlet’s thoughts teeter between just and unjust, would it be right to commit suicide as it is a sin in the eyes of God, and is our existence perhaps meaningless. These monologues that Hamlet likes to give show the reader just how neurotic he is and how he is debating with himself whether it is worth it to prove his father’s murder was an act of betrayal or just to kill himself over his grief for his