Grief In Hamlet's Grief

Leah Guy AP Lit, Period: 3 Ms. Visconti 11 January 2016 Hamlet Essay Throughout his play, Hamlet, Shakespeare employs literary devices to express Hamlet’s opinions of his mother’s recent marriage and his uncle replacing his father. In order to convey Hamlet’s opinions that occur immediately after Claudius addresses the court for the first time, Shakespeare uses devices such as allusion, metaphor, simile, and imagery. First, Shakespeare uses allusion by comparing the mourning of his mother, Gertrude, to the Greek mythical figure Niobe.

When applied correctly, soliloquies successfully allow the reader to experience characters in their most vulnerable state: within their own minds. Hamlet is no exception to this principle, as Shakespeare’s mastery of rhetoric in establishing the main character’s inner conflict provides depth and rawness to his complex character. In this well-known soliloquy, Shakespeare employs logos to acknowledge that death can be both a relief and nightmare due to natural human emotions; accordingly, Hamlet personifies a severe case of teenage depression by simultaneously wishing for an end to suffering yet remaining hesitant to act on his own thoughts due to his fear of the unknown.         Throughout this passage, Hamlet attempts to rationalize ending his life over continuing to endure the painful reality of his existence. The parallelism in this particular soliloquy serves several rhetorical purposes, including the development of an implicit contrast between Hamlet’s mental state and the actual organization of his thoughts.

Throughout the play, Hamlet has various points where he is confronted with suicidal thoughts or attempts. Throughout Hamlet’s first soliloquy “Oh, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, / Thaw resolve itself into a dew, / Or that the Everlasting had not fixed/ His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! Oh God, God!”

we see prince Hamlet feeling far from cheerful due to his father 's death and his unstable family. He shows his hardships and loss of identity throughout the story, but we see it in-depth during his mourning phase when he can 't seem to deal with anyone. He goes to the people that he feels close to, the ones he can trust, and his perspective on life and maturity grow throughout the story. Adversity can at first leave us feeling a strong sense of emotion, people gradually take more control and act rationally and more stable. Hamlet is affected harshly with deep and dark feelings of thought and emotion when his father passed away.

Death is one of the most prominent themes in Hamlet, appearing in different forms. Shakespeare displays death through the suicide of Ophelia, Hamlet’s own thoughts and eventual suicide, and the murder of King Hamlet and Polonius. Hamlet displays suicidal tendencies throughout the play through his soliloquies. The first time that Hamlet contemplates committing suicide is when Gertrude and Claudius tell him that he has to stay in Denmark in Act one. “Oh, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew, or that the Everlasting had not fixed his canon ‘gainst self-slaughter!

He expresses his feeling in his “heart, for I must hold my tongue” (1.2.160). This is an important quote because it is important to understand because it allows to the reader to see that Hamlet cannot speak to anyone about how he feels. As an effect to his decision of not speaking out, this allowed for rage and discomfort to grow inside him which will be one of the main reasons as to why he is legitimately going insane. With these various stressors in his life, it gives more evidence and reasoning to why he often experienced constant signs of depression and suicidal thoughts. The signs of distress he showed throughout the play are highlighted tremendously since he experienced major signs of depression.

This speech reveals to us that not only is Hamlet incredibly dismal over his fathers death and the wedding, but he holds a very low opinion of himself. Not only is he so upset that he contemplates suicide, he also compares himself as opposite Hercules, who is heroic and strong. Hamlet also reflects greatly on the theme of corruption. He reveals the corruption of his uncle who is a unfit for old Hamlet 's crown and has married his brothers wife without properly grieving for his brother. Hamlet also explains his mothers corruption as she appeared to be in love with Hamlet 's father yet was corrupt in her quick remarriage with little grief for her fallen love.

Hamlet’s seventh and final soliloquy represents the watershed in the play whereby our protagonist finally manages to shake off his lassitude and embark upon a course of direct physical action representing the culmination of a somewhat protracted period of solemn contemplation and internal intellectual discourse. It is crucial to our understanding of his character development. By the end of the soliloquy Hamlet brings an end to his earnest contemplation on the immoral act of revenge and finally accepts it as his duty. The concluding two lines of the text bear testament to this hardening of Hamlet’s resolve “Oh from this time forth, / My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth” (4.4 66-67).

He frequently thinks about suicide throughout the course of the play. Hamlet's perspective on his life can be seen in his "To

Losing his father has brought him to a crossroads in which he must commit a course of action in order for resilience. The inability to do so may leave Hamlet in a disposition.

When no one took the time to think that he just suffered and is suffering still of the death of his father, a man that hamlet dearly loves and look up to. By his mom’s betrayal of

The leading force for Hamlet’s behavior to change is his mother marrying her dead husband’s brother two months later. In the play Hamlet states “O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason/ Would have mourned longer-married with my uncle,/ My father’s brother, but no more like my father” ( I.ii.150-152). This explains that Hamlet is frustrated because his mother moved on so fast and it seemed to him that she never really loved King Hamlet. Hamlet also claims that “Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,/That can denote me truly” ( I.ii.82-83 ). Hamlet is trying to tell his mother Queen Gertrude how he feels after the

On Hamlet, Mortality, And the Narrow Divide between Life and Death Hamlet- one of Shakespeare’s most thoroughly referenced works, and one the most widely studied pieces of English literature. Thanks to modern ignorance and terrible acts of misattribution, Hamlet has become synonymous with epic single acts, standalone speeches and incredible and ageless words of wisdom. But the reality stands alone in its travesty- Hamlet is more realistically akin to incestuous desire, copious amounts of death, unreciprocated love and the dire consequences that result from waiting too long to carry out your premeditated homicides. Too often are Hamlet’s self-pitying words associated with emotional intelligence, and his madness feebly mistaken as a reference

The best soliloquy is the one acted by Kenneth Branagh because it efficiently conveys Hamlet’s message while skillfully providing foreshadow. The soliloquy starts with a long shot of the setting, where Hamlet walks into a big empty room and as a result hears the echo of his footsteps, which gives a sense of isolation. In addition, the room is mostly white and well-lit, which helps to contrast Hamlet, as he’s wearing all black. Consequently, this highlights the Hamlet’s dread and supports the topic of his soliloquy, which is death.

IOC Commentaries -Hamlet- The extract given befits in Act III, scene 1 of the tragedy “Hamlet” written by William Shakespeare. This extract shows an important moment in the play, when Hamlet, the protagonist, contemplates whether or not to kill himself because his mother married his uncle, after his father’s death. Throughout the soliloquy he is depicted as a complex character who seeks the profound meaning of life, yet he is followed by an inexplicable feeling of not being able to proceed with putting an end to it. Shakespeare uses a great deal of stylistic and literary devices to underscore the main themes of this extract: life versus death and action versus inaction, which, I will be discussing in the following analysis.