“Than I to Hercules-within a Month,
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes.”
In this soliloquy, we learn about Hamlets adoration of his father and how this serves to emphasise the scorn that he shows towards his mother. Hamlet communicates that his father was divine, almost ‘god like’ character “so excellent a king”, who was “so loving to my mother”. He also illustrates the contrast between the new king and the old and such as his mother’s choice. “Hyperion to a satyr”, The example of extreme contrast increases the importance of Hamlet’s father and yet also makes a mockery of Claudius’s character; one which, to this point, the audience could have seen as strong and domineering.
When Hamlet says, “Frailty, thy name is woman”, he is personifying frailty as of the entire female race. The actions of his mother have led him to believe that all women are capable of acting this “wicked” way and that all women are weak. Alongside the image of his father that is communicated, Hamlet is saying, and therefore feeling, that people that he could look up to in life have departed and that the entire world had been altered,
“It is not nor it cannot come to good”
Hamlet does not seem to have so much more than a trace of hope. The distressed nature of Hamlet’s mind is also communicates well by the imagery that is used throughout the soliloquy. At the start, Hamlet says that he wants his “too too solid flesh” to “…melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew”. This goes alongside the later lines, “How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world”, where the build up of adjectives, one after the other, serves to highlight just how difficult it is for Hamlet to live in the world. It is as if Hamlet cannot deal with or, indeed, stand the physical side of life anymore; he needs to get rid of his body to be able to deal with the inner conflict occurring in his head. The poetry of these lines and the image that is expressed serve to reveal not only the tragic nature of his problem, also highlighted by his allusions to suicide, but also create a link between him and the audience, in fact, the entire soliloquy establishes a connection between the audience and Hamlet, a concept that is essential in the play.
Another good example of imagery in the soliloquy is that of the “unweeded garden that grows to seed; things rank… in nature “. The image represents the something that is rotten “…rotten in the state of Denmark”. It is a simile for the state of his society, as in it used to be nice but now is “gross”. The language of the description also emphasises this as it suggests images all serve to highlight Hamlet’s impression of the society that the audience are only just forming theirs upon; therefore, leading to a bias towards the character of Hamlet.
The structure of the piece also communicates the nature of Hamlet’s thoughts as he is constantly changing subject, “Let me not think on’t – Frailty thy name is woman! A little month”, and is doing so by using short, broken sentences. These help reveal and suggest the depth of Hamlets thought’s; he has so much going on in his head that he wants to commit suicide and is therefore trying to rationalise his feeling. H is repressing himself from revealing his true, innermost thoughts, “But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue”, perhaps because the gravity of his situation is too much to bear.
Another dramatic soliloquy giving us an insight in Hamlet’s thoughts is act two scene two.
The opening two lines are filled with distress. Here Hamlet expresses his disapproval of the way he can not act to avenge his dead father.
“What rouge and peasant slave am I”!
He experiences no sense of self here as he has motivation but minus action. This reminds us of the first soliloquy. Again he seems to hate himself. He relates to himself to thing’s that lack honour and authority.
This soliloquy comes at a moment in the play, after the ghost of Hamlet’s father has visited him.
He has met, the ‘players’ and a band of travelling actors. He gets a main actor to recite a speech whilst he is performing the actor then starts crying.
“Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction a fiction, in a dram of passion
Force he’s soul to he’s own conceit.”
Hamlet couldn’t believe it. How could this “player” cry over a piece of fiction when Hamlet himself could not even be emotional concerning the murder of his father.
