Hamlet: Soliloquies

Hamlet: Soliloquies

Hamlet, one of Shakespeare’s tragic plays, portrays the story of a young man’s quest to avenge his murdered father and his quest to find his true identity. In his soliloquies, Prince Hamlet reveals to the readers his personal perceptions of the events that take place in his homeland, Denmark, and of which are either indirectly or directly tied to his father’s murder. Many critics and scholars agree that while Hamlet’s soliloquies reveal the search of his identity and true character, his soliloquies universally illustrate man’s search for his true identity.

The first soliloquy of Hamlet takes place early in the play, and Hamlet expresses his lachrymose feelings to the reader and how he wishes that God “had not fixed his cannon ‘gainst self-slaughter.” He explains that only two months after his father’s death, his mother “married with my uncle, my father’s brother, but no more like my father than I to Hercules.” While Hamlet does not examine his identity or character immediately, he illustrates the cause of his sorrow. Hamlet also contrasts his father from his uncle saying that they have nothing in common like he does to Hercules. This could be an underlying denouncement of his own character, and by contrasting himself to Hercules – a symbol of strength in both body and mind, he suggests that he lacks self-worth or self-esteem. Nevertheless, it is apparent to the reader that Hamlet is suicidal, as he contemplates it within the first line of the soliloquy.

In his next soliloquy Hamlet reveals his conflict: he knows he must avenge his father, but he hesitates to commit pre-meditated murder. He calls himself a “rogue and peasant slave” and states that he, the “player in a fiction, in a dream of passion,” is not hastened to his cause, and “can say nothing for a king upon whose property and most dear life a damned defeat was made.” He condemns himself and asks: “Am I a coward? Who calls me villain? Breaks my pate across? Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face? I should take it; for it cannot be but I am pigeon-livered.” But in justification to himself, he exclaims that he shall strike a play - a reenactment of his father’s murder, and he states: “The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.” In his soliloquy, Hamlet derives his feelings of himself as a coward because he, “the son of a dear father murdered, pr...

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...How stand I then, that have a father killed, a mother stained, excitements of my reason and my blood, while to my shame I see twenty thousand men fight for a plot?” And after this he declares “from this time forth my thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth!” Finally, after contemplations, philosophizing, and searching for his purpose and identity, it seems that Hamlet understands himself as a person. He confronts his apprehension, and after witnessing a horde of men fighting for a single cause, Hamlet undergoes a revelation of his purpose – to avenge his father. With the search for his identity over, Hamlet’s whole position in the chain of events transforms from reluctant to immerse with cravings for revenge.

In conclusion, Hamlet’s soliloquies illustrate the search for his identity. With every soliloquy, Hamlet’s maturity increases, and undergoes a change from an impulsive child to a fate-accepting adult. Furthermore, every soliloquy exhibits Hamlet’s feelings of insecurity with himself, except the final soliloquy. It is in his final speech that Hamlet accepts himself for who he is, and determines that he is Hamlet, a revenge-seeking prince on a quest for his father’s vengeance.