An Overview of Passages and Important Words

"loose and fishmonger"
Acting as the King's spy, Polonius demonstrates no respect towards his daughter in considering on "loosing" her to Hamlet. His words imply her to be a caged animal under her master's bidding and held without freedom of movement or will. To refer to using his daughter as loosing an animal, specially to spy on Hamlet, belittles and degrades Ophelia.
"To be or not to be"
Remembered and honored for its potency, this phrase deserves to be uttered with moderate pauses to emphasize Hamlet's fragmented and fractured state of mind. This rhetorical question that Hamlet repeatedly asks himself throughout his soliloquy demonstrates his confusion and emotional suffering brought on by the recent death of his father and his mother's marriage to his uncle Claudius, now crowned as King. His powerful, rhetoric words illustrate the intensity of his bewildered thoughts.
"St. Valentine's"
Her mind completely fractured, Ophelia wanders in her speech and mentions the thought of St. Valentine's as a joyous, romantic occasion for a young couple. Unfortunately, she believes she no longer has the opportunity to experience a romantic wonder with Hamlet. I imagine Ophelia uttering St. Valentine's with a tone of despair, hopelessness, and wanting.
"Give me some light"(Emphasis on "light")
Overwhelmed with the familiarity of the play's plot, the King momentarily succumbs to the guilt of his murder, his assumption of the crown and throne with bloody hands. As his guilt nearly overwhelms him, he demands the people to leave in order to regain his composure and hide any physical signs of his guilt. His words can be understood as figurative language, to ironically focus the audience's attention to the guilty King when he demands to be alone or the somber, dark conscience of the King.
"the play's the thing"
Confused by the recent knowledge he obtained about the murder of his father, Hamlet declares the play as the snare or light that will reveal and confirm whether or not Claudius murdered Hamlet's father for the throne. With the iambic pentameter having stressed(play's,thing) and unstressed(the,the) syllables, I imagine Hamlet speaking these words fluidly and wittily, with a touch of humor.

Figurative Language in Hamlet

As I mentioned last week in my blog, in literature, figurative language works to expand meanings and ideas beyond the literal sense; a writer may communicate images to highlight an aspect in the story and its relation to other characters or themes. In Hamlet, Shakespeare focuses on the sense of touch to communicate the pain and emotions of a grieving Laertes, "O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt,/ Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!" Clearly, the intensity of the metaphorical heat communicates to the reader the intensity of the grief Laertes experiences over the fractured state of mind his sister Ophelia has gone through. This metaphor also serves as an exaggeration as the intensity of the grief appears to overwhelm his thoughts. In another example, Hamlet employs a metaphor to expand beyond the literal meaning,"His purse is empty already; all 's golden words are spent". Though very much resembling a common saying, this phrase serves as a metaphor that connects the idea of words and speech with value(i.e. monetary).

Claudius and Laertes

In Act IV Scene VI, though Laertes appears infuriated and vengeful for the recent death of his father Polonius, Claudius subtly directs his words to appeal to Laertes' emotions to manipulate him and encourage him to kill Hamlet. At first, Claudius convinces Laertes that he holds no blame for the death of Polonius, despite the fact that he at first witholds the information that Hamlet killed Laertes' father. Claudius attempts to charm Laertes with benevolence and have Laertes trust him in these serious circumstances, claiming that he should "put me in your heart for friend". He attempts to appeal to the emotions of Claudius, even questioning Laertes if his father was dear to him, or if he was "like the painting of a sorrow" and not actually having remorse or grief over his father's death. By appealing to Laertes' emotions and persuading him to follow Claudius' desires with his love of his father as his motivation, Claudius clearly manipulates Laertes and directs his anger away from himself and towards Hamlet.

Hamlet's Attack on his Mother

In Act III of scene IV, the audience first witnesses the direct harshness and verbal abuse Hamlet directs towards his mother and his hatred for her immoral marriage to his uncle after the recent death of Hamlet's father. Hamlet considers the relationship between husband and wife to be strong even after death, and perceives the quickness of his mother's marriage as an immoral, selfish act that would "have my father much offended." He attempts to remind her of the love his father and she shared for each other before his death and harshly criticizes her for simply disregarding their love through her quick act of marriage, calling her "your husband's brother's wife". With this title, Hamlet reminds the Queen of the emotionally and personally strong relation she had for Hamlet's father and the immoral incest she's involved in after the death of the previous king. To further criticize her for her impurity and failure to grieve for her husband, Hamlet emphasizes the details of her immoral engagement with her husband's brother, claiming her love life is as if living "In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,/ Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love/ Over the nasty sty." With such graphic and dirty details, Hamlet compares the Queen's love life with her husband's brother to a wild animal's life, filled with dirty, vile impurity.

Sounds & Rhymes, Rhymes and Sounds

In literature, writers often focus on the sense of sound to help readers understand and see details of an object or an event occuring in the story, such as the roar of raging ocean tides. The most common forms of communicating sounds are onomatopoeia, rhyme schemes, internal and end rhymes, assonance, and alliteration. With these literary devices, a narrator may also appeal to the audience's emotions towards calm, smooth sounds and harsh, screeching, abrupt sounds. These connections are used to relate to a characteristic of an object, event, or theme, or to bring to the audience's attention a certain phrase or topic. In Frost's poem "Out, Out-", the snarling of the buzz-saw depicts a vivid, harsh sounding, predatory machine. Beyond depicting a vivid imagery, the word establishes the personification of the buzz-saw. In Shakespeare's play "Hamlet", to demonstrate his sinister tone, the Ghost of Hamlet's father uses alliteration and assonance, "Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres". The Ghost talks in a sinister tone to portray to the audience and Hamlet the cruelty and fright the afterlife holds for the dead.

Hamlet Essay: Working Conclusion

Throughout the play, Hamlet's subtle, witty remarks coincide with King Claudius' royal, reverential, yet fake language in that both characters conceal their intentions and ambitions whenever in the presence of other characters. Yet, Hamlet's short burts of language in his soliloquies onstage is permeated with emotion and reflects his disfragmented order of thought. In these scenes he reveals to the audience his true ambitions and motivations that are hinted only subtly in public. On the other hand, Claudius' lengthy, reverential language reflects his attempt to develop the facade of being a dominant, ideally paternal king who rules without association with manners that taint his royal purity, like the murder of the previous king. Hamlet's short, yet fragmented language juxtaposes Claudius' lengthy, calm language, in which Claudius deceitfully conceals his ambitions and intentions of ruling as king, even with bloodied hands.

Symbolism and Theme

Symbolism is a literary device in which a setting, event, or object is included in a story to represent a meaning beyond its literal meaning. Often, these meanings are related to the theme, which offers the main idea or belief of the story. In Yeats' poem "The Second Coming", the sphinx serves as the frequently mentioned symbol of the apocalyptic world of humanity. Depicted as a grandiose figure, the sphinx is more than merely a mythical, ancient statue; the sphinx is "born" along with the apocalyptic world after WWI and hence the poem suggests that the sphinx serves as the portrayal of a new, destructive, and terrifying figure part of Spiritus Mundi. In Shakespeare's Hamlet, a theme that frequently shows up throughout its scenes is the double layer of character, deceit. Most of the characters in Shakespeare's play develop an appearance or conceal a secret or trait from others, and then they reveal their ambitions, motives, or true character in soliloquies or in other forms. For instance, in the first Act, the Ghost of Hamlet's father reveals to Hamlet and the audience that "The serpent that did sting thy father's life/Now wears his crown", suggesting that the serpent Claudius deceived the royal family and the King's people in the death of the previous King of Denmark. Moreover, the quick marriage of Gertrude to Claudius after the recent death of Hamlet's father indicates that she does not hold loyalty and love for Hamlet's father for long, contrary to the belief of the Ghost and Hamlet, who see her quick marriage as an act of betrayal and deception.