1st soliloquy

1^st solil\oquy:

·         Hamlet begins by stating he wishes to be dead, yet he will not commit suicide for fear of everlasting punishment.

·         Scorns all that life and the world has to offer, comparing it to an unweeded garden.

·         Beginning with line 136, Hamlet curses his mother for marrying his uncle two months after his father died. Hamlet calls his father an excellent king and his uncle a scoundrel.

·         Comments that his mother's affection for his uncle increases, causing Hamlet to curse women in general.

·         Criticizes his mother's quick marriage to an inferior person so soon after his father's death.

·         Hamlet's heart his broken and must not speak of his disgust in public.

• Line 129 - Hamlet uses synechdoche, a special type of metaphor that uses a part to represent the whole or the whole to represent the parts. In this example, flesh represents physical life. His flesh melting, thawing and resolving itself into a dew is a metaphor for dying.
• Lines 135-136 - Hamlet uses a metaphor, comparing the world to an unweeded garden that produces things "rank and gross in nature."
• Line 140: Hamlet uses an allusion to compare his father to his uncle: Hyperion is the Titan god of light in Greek Mythology; satyrs are half man/half beast, usually depicted as man above the waist and a horse or goat below the waist. The implication that Claudius below the waist is a beast is a comment on the new king's lechery.
• Line 146 - Hamlet uses an apostrophe, speaking directly to "frailty." This line provides insight on Hamlet's attitude toward women.
• Line 149 - Hamlet alludes to Niobe, a character in Greek mythology, famous for her ceaseless tears following her children's death. Hamlet compares the Queen to Niobe immediately following his father's death, making her marriage to Claudius all the more despicable in Hamlet's eyes.
• Line 157 - Hamlet uses personification--incestuous sheets--to characterize her mother and her uncle's relationship. Dexterity in the same line is not void of sexual innuendo.
• Line 158 - Hamlet uses meiosis, or understatement, to end his soliloquy, stating that all this cannot come to good, a mild statement in comparison with the rest of his speech.

The red text is an extract from this site: http://www.brighthub.com/education/homework-tips/articles/58444.aspx#ixzz1H8p35uv8

Themes: Love, Revenge, Misogyny, Religion, Death and Decay