Trever Barnes
11/12/2015
HELP RECEIVED:
What is the reason that you use me thus?; An Analysis of the Development of Emotion and Thoughts in
Hamlet Through Soliloquys, Structure, and Rhetoric Devices
Word Count: 2,867
Many questions came about in regards to Hamlets character development.
As Hamlet
developed through the play, it is important to pay attention to the effect in which his soliloquys had in
this development, and how they assisted in his problem solving by guiding him towards an answer to his
problems. All of Hamlet’s soliloquys were unique, using a combination of rhetorical devices such as
caesuras and enjambments combined with structure. Shakespeare is able to insert a wide variety of
emotions through Hamlet’s soliloquys, allowing Hamlet to convey his thoughts, feelings, and emotions
as he tackles the turmoil of self-identity within, solving his dilemmas and discovering himself throughout
the progression of the play. With the combination of rhetorical devices and strategies throughout
Hamlet’s soliloquys, Shakespeare was able to reveal the inner turmoil, thoughts, feelings, and emotions,
setting the mood for the character for the entirety of the play, while the formatting and use of devices
also aided in his development of Hamlet as a character. With the combination of all these devices,
Hamlet reveals many emotions to the audience by collecting his own thoughts and trying to resolve the
internal conflicts that he is facing. In performing soliloquys, Hamlet is able to problem solve and solve
the internal dilemmas, turning a seemingly straightforward contemplation of suicide towards the
underlying problem of revenge.
In Hamlet’s first soliloquy, “O that this too too solid flesh would melt…” (i.ii), it becomes
apparent of Shakespeare’s use of rhetoric from the very beginning, as he uses many pauses and stops in
order to achieve the emotional effect in which he does. The use of commas and exclamation points
create dramatic pauses in his speech. These dramatic pauses throughout Hamlet’s soliloquy are called
caesuras, and are used as a short break from the emotion that he is flooding to the audience. The
emotional disturbance in Hamlet's character is amplified by severely altering the way the soliloquy is
read with exclamations that create the divide and sentence fragments, using a device called a caesura
(Mortensen). Shakespeare’s use of rhetoric strengthens Hamlet’s perceived emotional instability to the
crowd.
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!
O God! (i.ii.129-132).
In using rhetoric strategy, Hamlet was able to convey heavy emotions when going through his
internal thought process. On one end, Shakespeare could have been using rhetoric throughout this
soliloquy in order to strengthen the appeal of Hamlet’s melancholy and depict him as a mad man. A
second perception can be argued in saying that Hamlet himself was witty and a great actor of sorts,
putting on a show for the audience in front of him to seemingly appear mad (Hudson). With either of
these views however, the use of rhetoric in Hamlet’s first soliloquy allowed the amplification and
strengthening of emotion throughout, being used to depict Hamlet’s extreme state of depression and
madness over his father’s death.
Hamlets collective thought process followed pattern through many of his initial thoughts,
battling with his own existing and being, teetering on the idea of life or death. While this was his initial
thought, his rational thinking always allowed him to work beyond those thoughts and reach a
conclusion, getting that much closer to the underlying issues (Champion 267). By paying close attention
to his first soliloquy, “Oh that this too solid flesh would melt,” once more, we see firsthand Hamlet’s
development away from suicidal thoughts to discovering an internal issue. From this soliloquy, he
gathers his thoughts and draws his internal issues towards his mother. While this is not the underlying
problem, realizing it involves his own mother gets him closer to the revenge piece that drives the play.
When viewing the same opening line analyzed in the previous paragraph, more of Hamlet’s demeanor
can be interpreted. With this quote, we see Hamlet’s initial contemplation of suicide quickly be
retracted, as he, states it is against gods will to commit “self-slaughter.” After retracting his ideas of
suicide, he begins to discuss his issues with his mother, bringing up her ease to move on from his father
so easily and his disliking towards her for such actions. In discussing his mother and her moving on,
Hamlet skirts close to the distrust not to his own mother, but to Claudius for what he has done to his
family. As this is all still spoken in the very beginning of the play, Hamlet is still very fresh in his
development of thought, as he has yet to expand and learn more through the developing scene around
him.
When comparing the developing thoughts from Hamlet’s first soliloquy to his last, the reader is
able to see the initial development leading to a final product of complete thought, realization, and
coming to a decision. In Hamlet’s final soliloquy following his encounter with Fortinbras, he states:
Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honour’s at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father kill’d,
a mother stain’d,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep? while, to my shame,
I see the imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That,
for a fantasy and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds,
fight for a plot whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain?
O,
from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth! (4.4.32-67)
A stronger sense of drama is added to Hamlets revelation on his need to act swiftly on
his revenge from this moment on when the soliloquy is restructured to be read with the stops and
enjambments within (Mabillard). That is what makes Hamlets last soliloquy a final product on the
converging ideas from each one previous. As he lead up to this final revelation for revenge, he never
truly was able to pinpoint the internal issues. Through his many soliloquys, he was seen contemplating
life versus death, distrust towards his friends, hate towards Claudius, and the morality of his decisions.
In the concluding lines of this final soliloquy, Hamlet is finally realizing it is morally acceptable to kill a
man who unjustly murdered his father, as men before him go out and die in clutches for a meaningless
patch of land, so basically nothing. It took majority of the play for Hamlet to realize that it is morally
acceptable to kill a man who kills unjust too.
In addition to better conveying Hamlet’s apparent emotional madness and melancholy,
Shakespeare’s use of rhetoric also did a good job at revealing Hamlet’s dark thoughts, plans and feelings
towards other characters. While the use of a soliloquy allows a character to reveal his plans to the
audience and generate dramatic irony, emotion would be void without the use of rhetoric devices such
as caesuras.
With these devices, Hamlet reveals many emotions to the audience such as guilt, anger,
and cowardice towards Claudius as he compiles together a plan to take his revenge (Mabillard). It is the
content of this soliloquy that makes its language so powerful, as here Hamlet finally reveals his true
internal conflict, and the conflicting feelings, which prevent him from carrying it out. Combining
Hamlet’s strong emotions with literary devices such as metaphors, similes, and a synecdoche,
Shakespeare was able to create a strong and emotional protagonist by creatively revealing his thoughts
and emotions. In doing so, the reader is capable of connecting with Hamlet on an emotional level and
more sympathetic to the cause.
While rhetoric devices played an important role in conveying emotion throughout his soliloquys,
the structure in which the soliloquy was presented to the reader came into effect as well, as the
emotional reveal in some cases displayed Hamlet’s insanity, while in others, revealed his ability to
rationalize and avoid irrational decision making. The structure of Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy
was pieced together in such a way that Shakespeare’s use of rhetoric was maximized for emotional
reveal. With the use of soliloquys, Hamlet revealed his thoughts to the audience as he collected them
within himself. In this his soliloquys had structure and revealed emotions with a similar pattern. After
collecting his thoughts, Hamlet would go raving with madness and insanity. This is seen with his use of
exclamation points and caesuras, rhetoric devices that emphasized his anger and madness (Hudson).
While Hamlet spoke in meter, his demeanor and character developed from rational thought to madness,
yet he was always capable of recovering thoughts and emotions. This is how Hamlet was able to
establish himself as a very levelheaded character, as he was able to talk himself down and resolve his
issues using soliloquys. In using the order of emotional reveal to the audience, we see the inner
struggles he has with dealing with the issues and his ability to resolve them without acting out of place.
In doing so he establishes himself not as a character who has gone mad, but one who is very capable of
using speech and reasoning to problem solve.
Hamlet’s many soliloquys contributed to his ability to reason and get closer to addressing the
real issue to his problems, as he was never truly contemplating “to be or not to be”, but rather the idea
of revenge and whether it’s justifiable or not. With each sequential soliloquy Hamlet developed his
thoughts and ideals, diverging away from the thought of suicide, and more towards his actions or right
and wrong, contemplating the internal problems facing the morality of committing murder by acting on
his plans for revenge.
While Hamlet’s use of soliloquys was successful in conveying his thoughts and feelings,
it was also useful in being able to help him reason and solve his dilemmas by talking out his issues. One
interesting fact to note about Hamlet through observation, out of Shakespeare’s many tragedies, he is
portrayed as one of the most depressing and suicidal of all tragic heroes, yet not once does he ever
commit to the act of suicide. This ability to not act on a rash decision can be contributed to his use of
soliloquys, as Hamlet has six total throughout the entire play, more than any other character in any of
Shakespeare’s plays (Spradley). With the use of soliloquys, not only was Hamlet able to convey his
thoughts and feelings to the crowd and generate dramatic irony, but also in giving his soliloquys he was
able to reason, solve and figure out his internal dilemmas, ultimately solving his problems by talking
through them internally. In doing so, Hamlet was able to talk himself out of acting irrationally.
Hamlet’s ability to reason and figure out his internal dilemmas by talking through his soliloquys
can be seen heavily in his soliloquy while stalking Claudius, “Now might I do it pat, now he is praying…”
Throughout this soliloquy, we see Hamlet using reasoning and talking himself through his decisions
before acting, something not seen in Shakespeare tragedies as characters typically act irrationally.
Up, sword;
and know thou a more horrid hent:
When he is drunk asleep,
or in his rage,
Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed;
At gaming, swearing, or about some act that has no relish of salvation in’t;
It is here in this soliloquy that Hamlet talks himself out of making quick, spur of the moment
decisions. In this soliloquy in particular, he battles with himself on whether he should or should not take
his revenge on Claudius. Initially he sees the moment as ideal, as he is unaware. He believes he has
gotten confession through his sporadic actions in viewing the play, but through the soliloquy, he talks
himself out of it, stating that, “now he is praying; And now I'll do't. And so he goes to heaven.” In his
reasoning, he stops himself based on the premise that enacting revenge on Claudius while he is praying
will send him to heaven and will therefore not be the ideal revenge. He puts his sword away and deems
it not the right time, believing the best time will be to catch him drunk, raging, gambling, or swearing, as
it is not truly revenge if he is to send him to heaven. It is Hamlet’s back and forth within himself and his
internal dilemmas that show the strength in his reasoning and his ability to be a very level headed
intelligent character (Wright).
The way in which rhetoric is presented throughout Hamlet’s soliloquy regarding Claudius is
much more different from previous presentations. While in earlier soliloquys Hamlet barks madness
and depression within, the rhetoric devices and structure draw out his sentences. Noting each break in
his dialogue and using it as a pause, his demeanor is very slowed down. In past soliloquys, these breaks
were caused by exclamation points or trailing run on sentences, yet in using colons, semicolons, and
commas, it is a very cold and callus presentation of his emotion to the event, highlighting the
seriousness of his issue(Spradley). This structure contributes to the ideal that he is facing a great
internal dilemma, contemplating whether he should commit murder or not based on the premise of
revenge.
While the use of a soliloquy helped Hamlet contemplate his thoughts before acting on them,
there were limits, issues, and repercussions that followed it as well. The number of soliloquys could be
seen as excessive, and his cautious mindset and inability to act on anything set for a chain of events that
could have been prevented. In reference back to his soliloquy where Hamlet contemplates his revenge
on Claudius at the opportune moment, his rationality and internal thought talked him out of it.
Although he gave justifiable reasons not to, Hamlet’s personality simply would not allow him to commit
murder on a defenseless man. He became paralyzed in thought as he was “thinking too precisely on
th'event" (iv.iv.41). It is because of this paralysis in thought that Claudius was able to live, only to go on
and plot against Hamlet, leading to the death of four others, including himself. So while many would
argue it was good on Hamlet to rationalize thoughts and emotions through a soliloquy, it can be seen
that it is good only in moderation, as hesitation and uncertainty simply led to a larger tragedy.
A true sign that Hamlet was finally able to piece together his thoughts and internal ideas
into a decision never truly came until the final act of the play, in his last talk with Horatio. Before he
enters the chambers to confront Claudius, he states to Horatio:
Not a whit, we defy augury; there's a special providence in
the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be
not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come:
the readiness is all. Since no man knows aught of what he leaves,
what is't to leave betimes? Let be. (v.ii.219-223)
In this final talk with Horatio, we see Hamlet for the first time mention his plan to carry
out his plan of revenge on Claudius, even if indirectly. It is in his final moments he was finally able to
remove the barrier of discretion within himself that the soliloquys provided him through the entirety of
the play by speaking his thoughts and intentions aloud. In opening up to Horatio about his internal
dilemmas, he ultimately reached a conclusion within and was finally able to break down that barrier and
make it be known, so to with his revenge. In doing so Hamlet was finally able to realize what needed to
be done, as he no longer was at internal conflict with himself trying to resolve his issue, as he now
discovered the true issue and saw the importance of its resolution through interaction with Fortinbras
and his surroundings. With his final piece of dialogue he is able to vocalize his intentions and bring them
to the surface.
Works Cited
Champion, Larry S. “ʻBy Indirections Find Directions’": The Soliloquies in Hamlet.’”
The Journal of General Education 27.4 (1976): 265–280. Web.
Hudson, Henry. "Hamlet: Versification and Diction." Shakespeare.
Ginn & Co., 1 Apr. 2002. Web. 12 Nov. 2015.
Mabillard, Amanda. Hamlet Soliloquy Analysis.
Shakespeare Online. 20 Aug. 2000. Web. 12 Nov. 2015.
McDonald, Russ. Shakespeare and the Arts of Language. Oxford
[England: Oxford UP, 2001.] Print.
Michelotto, Paulo. "Iambic Pentameter in Hamlet."
Academia. 18 Sept. 2009. Web. 4 Nov. 2015.
Mortensen, Arthur. "Expansive Poetry & Music Online: Prosody." Expansive Poetry Online.
Rocks Press, 2000. Web. 12 Nov. 2015.
Pressley, J.M. "Hamlet : To Be or Not to Be."
Shakespeare Resource Center. 10 Feb. 2005. Web. 25 Oct. 2015.
Spradley, Dana. "Verse and Prose in Shakespeare."
Shakespeare Resource Center. 2002. Web. 12 Nov. 2015.
Wright, George T.. “The Play of Phrase and Line in Shakespeare's Iambic Pentameter”.
Shakespeare Quarterly 34.2 (1983): 147–158. Web.