Soliloquies In Hamlet Essay

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Shakespeare’s Hamlet very much rests on major themes of death, revenge, action, and deception. Shakespeare uses a series of soliloquies in the play in order to convey these messages and present characters, Hamlet in particular, in a way that is in depth, contemplative, and known to the audience while hidden from the remaining characters. The soliloquies seen in Hamlet provide structure and depth to the play as a whole, creating and exemplifying dynamics between characters and action, and the way in which characters respond to differing situations, often bring an existential element of the conflict between two realities (life and afterlife). The audience also sees Hamlet’s own character come through very strongly in these soliloquies, and we see his internal struggles and turmoil with notions of life versus death, taking action, and seeking vengeance against his father’s murder. It is in these soliloquies that the audience sees into the inner thoughts of Hamlet and his reactions to the world around him. While not all soliloquies in Hamlet are Hamlet’s, for example Claudius’s, the combination acts as an outlet for understanding the motivations and thought processes behind the events that take place throughout the course of the play. For example, we see Hamlet and Claudius placed in opposition to each other and we discover their intentions thorugh their soliloquies. They act as a function to propel characters to action, and reflect back on that action (or lack there of) as a means of furthering the depth and development of each character as the play progresses. Even though a particular soliloquy is only spoken by one character, what they reveal in these inner reflections are reflective of the nature of the cast of characters as a wh... ... middle of paper ... ...woes of his life, and all related back to the contemplation he feels in regards to life and death and the consequences of action. Other soliloquies involved Claudius escaping death, and Fortinbras putting Hamlet’s mind back into motion surrounding revenge, which all carry these themes. Ultimately, the soliloquies found in Hamlet all serve to provide the play with a structural basis throughout the entirety of the play that discusses common themes like the aforementioned life, death, afterlife, conscious and unconscious thought, nobility, and loyalty. The soliloquies serve to present Hamlet as contemplative of the controlling aspect of fate versus thought, and how thinking relates to the actions of human beings. They often bring the play to an existential level, contemplating essentially two worlds, the present and the afterlife, and move beyond a basic revenge plot.

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