How Does Hamlet Change In Hamlet

How all occasions do inform against me

And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,

If his chief good and market of his time

Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.

Sure he that made us with such large discourse,

Looking before and after, gave us not

That capability and godlike reason

To fust in us unus 'd. (Hamlet: IV, iv, 32 – 38)

1. The quotation occurs in Act 4 Scene 4 Lines 32-38. The passage is spoken by Hamlet.

2. This passage serves to develop character because it evokes a change in Hamlet’s character and his thinking. Thoughts of uncertainty and doubt are erased from his mind and his destiny becomes clear. He realizes that it is his duty to seek revenge and that God has created us with such a power and divine capacity to be used. Throughout the play, Hamlet was hesitant to seek revenge as he thought about the consequences. This change in Hamlet results in him spurring in to action. He realizes his true potential and this develops his character.

3. This passage serves to develop the theme of revenge. This passage proves to be a turning point in the play. Hamlet realizes that God has created

In this passage, Hamlet sees how wrong he is and that a person cannot achieve his true potential if he just eats and sleeps. Hamlet believes God has created humans with the ability to reason so if a human does not take advantage of this ability, they would have the equal capacity of a beast. He bitterly compares himself to Fortinbras and his soldiers. They die for honour, while he, with much greater reason to act, has failed to revenge himself on Claudius. He swears to follow Fortinbras’s example, stop delaying and finally carry out his revenge. The literary devices in this passage include Oxymoron and metaphor. Line 33 uses an oxymoron when he says “dull revenge”, through the use of seeming contradiction words as revenge cannot be dull. Line 35 is phrased in a rhetorical question that serves as a metaphor. Hamlet compares himself as a beast that eats and