On one level it helps develop the reader’s understanding of some of the play’s key themes. The first of these is revenge. At this point in the play, after Hamlet has earlier been told by his father’s ghost that he was murdered by his brother, Hamlet’s uncle Claudius, Hamlet has taken no significant action to claim that revenge the ghost has demanded. He believes he has established grounds for taking the appropriate revenge, yet
Shakespeare’s overall tone in the play Hamlet epitomizes the long disputed question; is Hamlet’s outcome determined by fate or his own free will? Hamlet is forced to make a life-altering decision when his father’s ghost asks him to kill his uncle Claudius. Hamlet is faced with two options. His first is to kill Claudius, which is treason and face life in prison or even death. The other option would be to not avenge his father and suffer the consequences in purgatory, Hamlet states, “Till the foul crimes done in my days of the nature/ Are burnt and purged away”.
Finally Hamlet had the perfect opportunity to get his revenge and yet again his indecisiveness is getting the best of him. Hamlet was procrastinating with his revenge of his father’s death because he was too indecisive on when and how he was going to do it also whether or not the ghost was right. He was over thinking everything and worrying if it was his father’s ghost or not. Hamlet was questioned, “Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn’d, / Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell, / Be thy intents wicked or charitable, / Thou com’st in such a questionable shape” (1.4. 40-43).
Not really, because he will still hold his mother responsible verbally. The sixth soliloquy, Hamlet now forms strategies to make the revenge killing of his Uncle more devastating by killing him at a time that he will have unforgiven sins to answer for before God. In the seventh soliloquy, Hamlet builds an entire realization about his own existence, the reasons why we do or do not do whatever we do, and that without resolved purpose, combined with a set of standards to live by, a
“Thou poor ghost.” (I, v, 97) Hamlet pities his father, as he was murdered and was not given the chance to pray. This conjures frightening thoughts in his mind, for if he were to be murdered as well, would he be sent to burn in purgatory? Towards the middle of the play, though Hamlet’s thoughts still point towards suicide, he begins to toy with the possibilities of what death could be like. “To die, to sleep; … perchance to dream.” (III, i, 60-65) He may find some comfort in death if death
Later in the scene, he has a soliloquy in which he says, “frailty, thy name is woman!” Hamlet views his mother’s frailty, or faults due to weakness especially of a moral character, as something that all women have. While Hamlet is upset with his mother’s swift decision to marry his uncle, he resolves that “but break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue,” or not speak even though it will break his heart to not let his mother know how he feels. In act one scene five, Hamlet discusses what happened to his father with what he believes to be his father’s ghost. The ghost tells him to “let not the royal bed of Denmark be a couch for luxury and damned incest. But, howsomever thou pursues this act, taint not thy mind nor let thy soul contrive against thy mother aught.” The ghost tells Hamlet not to take revenge on his mother but to focus his revenge on his uncle because it is his uncle that killed his father not his mother.
Hamlet’s Strong Anger and Frustration Throughout Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, the main character, Hamlet, has many soliloquies in which he expresses what is on his mind. In one passage from Act I, scene ii of the play, Hamlet is sufficiently unhappy with his mother’s choice of marrying his uncle, Claudius, very shortly after his father had died. He even mentions thoughts of suicide at the beginning of the passage. Shakespeare’s strong use of diction, structure, imagery, and language helps portray Hamlet’s anger, frustration, and suicide thoughts with what is going on at that moment in the play. Shakespeare thoroughly brings out Hamlet’s feelings with his manipulation of diction devices.
His change of attitude grows confusing as he professes his dear love after her awful death, “ I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not with all their quantity of love make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?”(5.1.255-257). After all the hatred consumed for Ophelia, Hamlet feels the need to show his love and care for her only after she is dead. Hamlet’s web of lies causes a dent in his portrayal towards society and the audience.
Hamlet in his first soliloquy demonstrates his disgust that his mother has allied herself in love and in politics with her late husband’s brother, so soon after his death, “frailty, thy name is woman... to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets”. Claudius is clearly established as the villain in Hamlet, murdering his own brother and then plotting to kill Hamlet. He lies and is deceitful toying with the notion that the appearance of things is not their reality. The audience is privy to the ‘reality’ of Claudius ‘deed’, and of his guilt, through an aside, climactically stating, “then is my deed to my most painted word. O heavy burden!”.
If acted or truly crazed, the actions Hamlet takes during his madness further his destruction and highlight the uneasiness attributed to him throughout the play. Following the death of his father, Hamlet is stricken with a motivation to avenge the death by killing the murderer,