Hamlet- Soliloquy Assignment Hamlet has many emotional soliloquies in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, which include him reflecting on his many life troubles, contemplating suicide, and making plans for revenge. Hamlet’s Act II Scene II soliloquy, which is a lengthy one, is broken down into four main thoughts; the first being how upset Hamlet is over the Player’s ability to get into the role of seeking fictional revenge with no emotional investment in a play, whereas he is a “John-a-dreams” who has made no real plans for revenge. This leads to the second main idea: Hamlet is chastising himself for procrastinating avenging his father’s death. At this point his is mopey and whiney about his lack of drive to accomplish his task. Hamlet increasingly gets angrier and angrier with himself as he keeps talking, and his anger turns to Claudius.
Hamlet was already greatly affected by his father's death and was in deep mourning. After the ghost came into contact with Hamlet, he embodied anger and found a deep addiction to revenge. The ghost of Hamlet's father revealed something to the young Hamlet about how the ghost, Hamlet's father, had died. From there, it set the course for the rest of the play. The ghost informed Hamlet that he had been killed by Sir King Claudius and that Claudius was, in fact, Hamlet's uncle.
The play’s main protagonist Hamlet lets his grief over his father’s murder fuel his thirst for revenge, Ophelia lets the grief over the murder of her father Polonius drive her to apparent suicide, and Ophelia’s brother Laertes is pushed to conspire with Claudius to kill Hamlet as a result of his grief. Grief might as well be its own character in Hamlet because if it was it would always be center stage. The grief present in Hamlet comes in many different shapes and forms. Even for life today, until people learn how to deal with grief it will become an inherent part of a person’s character. It is interesting to note how Shakespeare portrays his male and female characters ability to handle grief.
The full conflict of which he feels and keeps concealed within himself is not explained. Some insight into Hamlet’s true feelings are revealed however, through his soliloquies and asides. Although Hamlet mourns his father’s death, we see that the source of his depression lies in his mother’s hasty marriage. This has turned his world into “... an unweeded garden/ That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature/ Possess it, merely” (I.ii.135-137). While he accumulates more and more evidence of Claudius’ obvious guilt, he constantly returns to the theme of his mother’s remarriage, a source of pain equally as unbearable as the circumstances of his father’s death.
However, a tragic hero is a character who experiences conflict and suffers greatly as result of his/her choices. Despaired through the death of his father and his mother’s marriage to his uncle Hamlet then begins to possess feelings of grief, anger and frustration. With these flaws weighing on his conscience it contributes to the making of a tragic hero. This is due to the forced objective of avenging his father’s murder and his mother’s incestuous marriage, Hamlet’s lack of being able to dictate his own choices and his cowardly sense of committing suicide to avoid the suffering. Hamlets anger, which stems from his mother marrying Claudius, bears him serious thoughts of suicide.
I don’t value my life as highly as a pin”. From this point on in the play, Hamlet’s state of mind has completely changed, now only focused on nothing but avenging the death of his father. When Hamlet is at the wedding of his mother Gertrude and King Claudius, he is dressed in dark and gloomy colors. These colors reflect his mood immensely at this moment in the play as he is extremely depressed and sad over the loss of his father and also over his mother’s inability to stay ‘loyal’ to his father. He firmly believes that
This remark also implies that that he is still mourning the loss of his father and is not yet ready to move on. Hamlet also mentioned something rather peculiar: He claims to have seen his father, or rather a ghost of his father, “armed at point exactly.” (1.2.212) Hamlet spoke of the encounter with “oppressed and fear-surprised eyes” (1.2.215), suggesting that he does not fully believe it, yet he still wants to. The ghost allegedly told Hamlet that he must be prepared for revenge, for the new king, Claudius, poisoned his father in order to regain the throne. Both the resentment Hamlet holds towards his mother and uncle and his alleged encounter with the ghost of his father suggest that Hamlet has many family problems to work towards. Hamlet’s id speaks for him when he shows his
Ophelia drowned in the river, which causes Laertes to flee the room, overcome with grief. With the deaths of his only beloved family members, Laertes is in a rage and is overcome with grief and tragedy. Now that he knows Hamlet killed his father, he also blames Hamlet for driving Ophelia insane, which leads her to her death. So, he is probably on a bloody rampage, wanting to kill Hamlet in an instant. Everyone pities Laertes as his father and sister die; however Claudius uses this as an advantage to have Laertes kill Hamlet.
Shakespeare uses Hamlet`s hatred towards his mother to establish the betrayal Hamlet is feeling, and to acknowledge the fractured state of Hamlet`s family due to Gertrude`s actions and decisions. Not only did Gertrude betray her own son by marrying Claudius but she also betrayed her former husband, Elder Hamlet. Alone, Hamlet talks to the ghost of Elder Hamlet who expresses his disappointment in Gertrude, calling her an “adulterate beast” (1.5.42), meaning she has
This is apparent through the appearance of his father. The apparition claims that “I am thy [Hamlet’s] father’s spirit” (I.v.14). This shows that the king’s physical body is dead but not his soul. But the king admits that he had done some bad things in his life therefore he is “doomed for a certain term to walk the night” (I.v.15). As hamlet figures it out that the husband of his mother is a murderer—Uncle Claudius—he realizes that his mother is at fault.