Hamlet's Soliloquy in Act I
Holden Reich
Mrs. Ragot
English
25 August 2013
Hamlet’s First Soliloquy
Hamlet’s soliloquy in Act 1, Scene 2 serves to summarize the first events of the play as well as give the audience insight on Hamlet’s distaste for them. Shakespeare uses extensive imagery to show hamlet’s anger, disgust, sadness and recurring self-pity. These arise partially from his father’s death but are due, for the most part to his mother and uncle’s quick and somewhat perverse and unnatural marriage.
Throughout Hamlet’s first soliloquy his sadness and self-pity is very apparent. His sadness comes from his beloved father’s death and his mother’s quick marriage with his uncle. An extreme example occurs at the start of the soliloquy when he wishes that he could kill himself because of his family’s state. Hamlet states that he would commit suicide had it not been a sin, he says,
“O that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!”
Hamlet feels so strongly about his mother’s immoral actions that he seems no longer to care for his life. He also feels that the rest of the world is rather irrelevant due to the loss of his father and, for his purposes his mother. Hamlet shows his dissatisfaction with the world in the text, “How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable, Seem to me all the uses of this world!” Hamlet’s soliloquy clearly shows his unhappiness through imagery and figurative language. It also shows us why he is unhappy, not just because of his father’s death but because of the rest of his family’s betrayal.
Hamlet shows his anger towards his mother and the king constantly throughout his first soliloquy. He discredits them for what they have done, especially in the later part of the aside. Hamlet compares his father to his uncle as “Hyperion to a Satyr”, implying a spectrum of absolute good and evil between the two. Hamlet is distraught because he idolized his
Mrs. Ragot
English
25 August 2013
Hamlet’s First Soliloquy
Hamlet’s soliloquy in Act 1, Scene 2 serves to summarize the first events of the play as well as give the audience insight on Hamlet’s distaste for them. Shakespeare uses extensive imagery to show hamlet’s anger, disgust, sadness and recurring self-pity. These arise partially from his father’s death but are due, for the most part to his mother and uncle’s quick and somewhat perverse and unnatural marriage.
Throughout Hamlet’s first soliloquy his sadness and self-pity is very apparent. His sadness comes from his beloved father’s death and his mother’s quick marriage with his uncle. An extreme example occurs at the start of the soliloquy when he wishes that he could kill himself because of his family’s state. Hamlet states that he would commit suicide had it not been a sin, he says,
“O that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!”
Hamlet feels so strongly about his mother’s immoral actions that he seems no longer to care for his life. He also feels that the rest of the world is rather irrelevant due to the loss of his father and, for his purposes his mother. Hamlet shows his dissatisfaction with the world in the text, “How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable, Seem to me all the uses of this world!” Hamlet’s soliloquy clearly shows his unhappiness through imagery and figurative language. It also shows us why he is unhappy, not just because of his father’s death but because of the rest of his family’s betrayal.
Hamlet shows his anger towards his mother and the king constantly throughout his first soliloquy. He discredits them for what they have done, especially in the later part of the aside. Hamlet compares his father to his uncle as “Hyperion to a Satyr”, implying a spectrum of absolute good and evil between the two. Hamlet is distraught because he idolized his