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Shakespeare hamlet character analysis
Shakespeare hamlet character analysis
The features of Shakespeare’s language
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Literary Devices Identified in Hamlet’s Soliloquy
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Metaphor
The purpose of a metaphor is to compare the similarities between two different ideas. In the soliloquy, Shakespeare accentuates the shared characteristics between Hamlet and a submissive servant. Hamlet submits to his cowardice and falls victim to his tendency to reflect on his profound thoughts instead of acting upon them. Additionally, he accuses himself as a troublesome scoundrel. He views himself as a criminal although he had not done anything indictable yet. This metaphor introduces Hamlet’s perception in his current emotional state to the audience.
Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can
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Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the throat,
As deep as to the lungs? who does me this?
Rhetorical Question A rhetorical question is used to provoke thought rather than receiving an answer. Shakespeare’s use of this literary device lets the audience question how Hamlet may go about in his whole ordeal. He is perplexed as to why he has not inflicted revenge on his uncle Claudius yet. He does not see an explicit intention to avenge his father that he should become a rogue and murder the new king. His overall perception of himself is that he is a pusillanimous coward.
He would drown the stage with tears
Hyperbole
The purpose of a hyperbole is to exaggerate a statement. In the soliloquy, Shakespeare stresses King Claudius’s inflated reaction to the previous king’s death. Hamlet was furious as he thought back to Claudius’s fabricated response, fooling the entire population of Denmark, including Gertrude and himself. Claudius’s overwhelming tears and cracking voice made for an incredibly realistic performance. This hyperbole demonstrates to the audience how enraged Hamlet feels after being deceived by someone whom he once trusted, slowly fueling his desire for
In his famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy, Hamlet contemplates death and existence. To him, death is full of unknowns and existence is full of suffering and pain. Eventually, he decides to endure “the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks/that flesh is heir to…” (Shakespeare 62-3) rather than face the possible horrors that might be revealed in death. Kumin’s “In the Park” agrees with Hamlet in the aspect that death and the afterlife is mysterious. Through the exploration of Buddhist and Jewish beliefs on death and the near death experience of Roscoe Black with a grizzly bear in Glacier Park, Kumin comes to a conclusion that death is inevitable and non-discriminatory. Her nonchalant acceptance of death contrasts with Hamlet’s fear of death. The attitude of both poems towards life further sets them apart. Hamlet is tormented and intimidated by the suffering and pains of existence while Kumin subtly appreciates the complexity of life and the possibilities it offers.
Soliloquy and Revenge in Hamlet The soliloquy is a literary device that is employed to unconsciously reveal an actor's thoughts to the audience. In William Shakespeare's, Hamlet, Hamlet's soliloquy in Act II, ii, (576-634) depicts his arrival at a state of vengeful behaviour through an internal process. Hamlet moves through states of depression and procrastination as he is caught up in the aftermath of the murder of his father and the marriage of his mother to his uncle. The soliloquy serves to effectively illustrate the inner nature of Hamlet's character and develop the theme of revenge.
Much of the dramatic action of Shakespeare’s tragedy, Hamlet is within the head of the main character, Hamlet. His wordplay represents the amazing, contradictory, unsettled, mocking, nature of his mind, as it is torn by disappointment and positive love, as Hamlet seeks both acceptance and punishment, action and stillness, and wishes for consummation and annihilation. He can be abruptly silent or vicious; he is capable of wild laughter and tears, and also polite badinage.
Though this first soliloquy occurs rather promptly in the play, there are still a lot of proceedings that lead up to it. Hamlet comes back from school to find all is not well in the state of Denmark. His father has died a mysterious death, and his mother has already remarried his father’s brother. In royal times it was customary to mourn the death of royalty for a year, yet his mother only waited two months to remarry. She not only waited two months, but she was committing what Hamlet and others considered incest. This anomalous marriage paired with the recent meeting whit his mother and stepfather, where Hamlet is embar...
Each person goes through life questioning the whys and what ifs, but seldom do people act on those revengeful feelings unless they reach a point of action. Hamlet reaches such a point in life where wordplay no longer suffices, and he must act not out of necessity but out of filial duty and honor. In this soliloquy, Hamlet sheds his attachment for words and begins to act on his deeply held feelings of revenge/
In this essay I examine the soliloquy-approach which the hero uses. If Hamlet’s personality seems abnormally vague, if his different performer can award him with such widely differing characteristics, it is because his part is presented personally, much of it confided to us through soliloquies.
Hamlet’s first soliloquy takes place in Act 1 scene 2. In his first soliloquy Hamlet lets out all of his inner feelings revealing his true self for the first time. Hamlet’s true self is full of distaste, anger, revenge, and is very much different from the artificial persona that he pretends to be anytime else. Overall, Hamlet’s first soliloquy serves to highlight and reveal Hamlet’s melancholy as well as his reasons for feeling such anguish. This revelation in Hamlet’s persona lays the groundwork for establishing the many themes in the play--suicide, revenge, incest, madness, corruption, and mortality.
However, throughout the play we discover his soft heart and often his inability to act. By this he is betraying his father’s command. This betrayal is more than evident in this soliloquy. His mind is tainted by the thought that if he were to avenge while Claudius is “praying”, Claudius would go to heaven. Essentially in this soliloquy, William Shakespeare reveals the moral problems associated with committing revenge in a corrupt world. Again, Hamlet finds a way to excuse himself fro...
A principal theme in Shakespeare's Hamlet is the strength and flexibility of language. Words are used to communicate ideas, but can also be used to distort or conceal the truth and manipulate. Throughout the play characters comment on the properties of language and exploit these for their own advantage.
Starting on line 20 and continuing until line 26, he begins to explain what would happen if he told a part of his story. Shakespeare uses images within these metaphors, which creates a stronger image overall. Phrases like “freeze thy young blood” and “each particular hair to stand an end” are metaphorical images of what could happen to Hamlet after hearing his father’s story. King Hamlet’s spirit wants to emphasize his suffering, so Hamlet feels emotional enough to want revenge on Claudius. Hamlet hearing about how his father met an untimely death and now suffers, is an essential part of the play and sets the stage for his plan to prove that Claudius was indeed the
Throughout Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet” the main protagonist Prince Hamlet’s journey as a character is most strongly shown through his five soliloquies, with each soliloquy presenting a different obstacle for Hamlet to overcome. Ultimately this results in Hamlet being an extremely dynamic character who changes multiple times throughout the play, whether it be for better or worse. Hamlet’s first soliloquy shows his more extreme emotions, as throughout the soliloquy readers notice the lack of logic in his words, and the loss of Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter. However, Hamlet’s fourth soliloquy as arguably the complete opposite of the first, in which Hamlet shows pure logic, and lack of emotion. This results in him overthinking the situation and not taking action, pure logic can be dangerous as it tends to overcomplicate things.
This is most brave”(2.2.594). He is insulting himself because he is truly a coward. He then compares himself to a whore in the streets shouting and expressing his feelings, “Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words.”(2.2.597). He is emptying his his heart out with words and tears much like a coward would. Hamlet is frustrated with his inaction and scolds himself to put his brain to work, “About, my brains.”(2.2.599). He finally realizes that shouting and fooling around isn’t going to benefit him. He needs to stop and reevaluate the situation and conjure a plan.
Hamlet wishes he were dead, complains that suicide is a sin, and describes the world as useless and disgusting. He then talks about his father, comparing him to Claudius. He calls Claudius a half-man, half-beast creature. The second soliloquy, which begins “O what a rogue and pleasant slave am I.”, Hamlet compares himself to a mythical character named Hecuba and wonders what the latter would do in his situation. He then accuses himself of being a coward who can’t even avenge his father’s death.
Hamlet is one of the most often-performed and studied plays in the English language. The story might have been merely a melodramatic play about murder and revenge, butWilliam Shakespeare imbued his drama with a sensitivity and reflectivity that still fascinates audiences four hundred years after it was first performed. Hamlet is no ordinary young man, raging at the death of his father and the hasty marriage of his mother and his uncle. Hamlet is cursed with an introspective nature; he cannot decide whether to turn his anger outward or in on himself. The audience sees a young man who would be happiest back at his university, contemplating remote philosophical matters of life and death. Instead, Hamlet is forced to engage death on a visceral level, as an unwelcome and unfathomable figure in his life. He cannot ignore thoughts of death, nor can he grieve and get on with his life, as most people do. He is a melancholy man, and he can see only darkness in his future—if, indeed, he is to have a future at all. Throughout the play, and particularly in his two most famous soliloquies, Hamlet struggles with the competing compulsions to avenge his father’s death or to embrace his own. Hamlet is a man caught in a moral dilemma, and his inability to reach a resolution condemns himself and nearly everyone close to him.
Through the elements of technique portrayed in this essay, it is clear to see that Shakespeare is able to influence the reader through soliloquies, imagery, and dual understanding. This overall influence being both the communication of a deeper meaning, and a more complex understanding of the events and statements within Hamlet.