This passage from Shakespeare’s Hamlet takes place in Act I Scene II. Hamlet’s very first soliloquy is spoken right after his discussion with Gertrude and Claudius. They had been talking about how Hamlet needed to move on from the death of his father, although Hamlet thought that they had moved on far to quickly. From this passage, the audience learns how deeply the death of Hamlet’s father actually affects him and how he perceives other characters because of it. Hamlet begins by speaking of suicide. It seems the only thing keeping him from taking his own life is the fact that God is against it: “Or that the Everlasting had fixed his canon ‘gains (self slaughter! ) O God, God.” (135-136) Life without his father is not good.
Hamlet uses such negative words as “weary, stale, flat” (137) to describe the world. He feels nothing good can come out of the “unprofitable” (137) Earth. He says “‘Tis an unheeded garden that grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature possess it merely,” (139-141) and what he means is that bad things just start more bad things, like a never-ending chain reaction. There is also proof that Hamlet doesn’t approve of the marriage between his mother and uncle for various reasons. According to Hamlet, his mother was married way to soon after his father’s death, let alone marrying his deceased father’s brother.
“But two months dead- nay, not so much, not two.” (142) Many would agree that there should be a grief period longer than two months before a widow remarries. Claudius and Gertrude were married with “most wicked speed, to post with such dexterity.” (161-162).
The Essay on Hamlet: Revenge Leads To Death
Humans are strongly influenced by both their beliefs and their emotions, and as such, they adapt easily to character developments. William Shakespeare, in Hamlet, exposes the audience to the inner conflicts of the royal house of Denmark. The most obvious and frequently repeated of these conflicts had to do with revenge. Hamlet s conflict with Claudius had to do with revenge and Laertes conflict ...
