Hamlet: Decay and Corruption

In Hamlet, Shakespeare often uses gruesome dialogue to describe people, their actions, and his views of others morality. Many times he uses imagery of decay to describe something that is not as it should be. For example when the Columbia Dictionary of Quotations from Shakespeare refers to the quote, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” (1.4.90) it describes it as, “Hamlet’s general conclusion about the appearance of his father’s ghost,” (qtd. in“Corruption”58). Shakespeare often includes gross imagery in the dialogue to describe the corrupted state of Hamlet’s life. Hamlet hated his mother for marrying his uncle so soon after his father’s death, so he used gruesome language to describe her often. In the play, Shakespeare uses imagery of rot and decay to show Hamlet’s hatred for his mother, his hatred for women, and the idea that in death all men are equal.

Throughout Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the Prince uses images of decay to tell why he loathes his mother. Gertrude’s decision to marry Cornelius only two months after King Hamlet’s death leads the prince to say, “O, that this too too sullied flesh would melt, Thaw and resolve itself into a dew, Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter!”(1.2.129). In Shakespeare A To Z, Charles Boyce describes Prince Hamlet’s monologue as a wish for death that is denied only because of the prince’s religious stand point (232). Hamlet uses ghastly language to show how Gertrude influenced his view of women in general. Hamlet says, “Fie on’t! Ah fie! ‘Tis an unweeded garden that grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature possess it merely,” (3.4.29-30) to show that since his mother is weak, women will become weak in their virtues as well. In Hamlet: Not a Wo...

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... is not exempt from his blight judgment of women’s virtues. Hamlet’s blight judgment extends even farther than just the female society. Hamlet uses the circle of life to describe human worth even that of a king to Cornelius. In general Hamlet convoys an image of deterioration to construe the corrupted state of his life.

Works Cited

Bloom, Harold, ed. Bloom’s Notes. New York: Chelsea House, 1996. Print.

Boyce, Charles. “Hamlet.” Shakespeare A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Plays, His Poems, His Life and Times, and More. 1991. Print.

"Corruption." Columbia Dictionary Of Quotations From Shakespeare (1998): 58-59. Literary Reference Center. Web. 5 Feb. 2014.

Goldstein, Philip. "Hamlet: Not A World Of His Own." Shakespeare Studies 13.(1980): 71. Literary Reference Center. Web. 6 Feb. 2014.

Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. New York: Dover Publications, 1982. Print.