Hamlet\' First Soliloquy Hamlet\'s First

¶ … Hamlet' First Soliloquy

Hamlet's first soliloquy provides the reader with a startling and intriguing look into the heart of his character, and shows his true feelings toward Claudius and his mother. Through these lines, Hamlet reveals his contempt for his mother's marriage and the utter anger he feels toward the haste and his own feelings of futility that encompass it. It's a reflection of the world that Hamlet is thrust into after his father's death, and as he mourns, his mother is eager to marry a man that Hamlet feels could never live up to his father's image and character. He also feels that his own life is somehow negatively affected through this marriage, and sees his powerlessness as an indicator that he has lost control of his own family's actions.

Hamlet is heart broken that his mother would chose to marry so soon after his father's death, and must feel as though in some way, her haste to remarry is his own fault. He states, "O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into dew." (Shakespeare, William). He is releasing these words in anger and sorrow that his family's name is perhaps going to be dirtied by the quick marriage. He is grieved by his father's death and contemplates suicide in order to save face and dignity and so that he may not have to suffer as he watches the marriage take place. In Hamlet's time, it was considered a sin to commit suicide, so Hamlet quickly decides that he cannot turn his, "canon 'gainst self-slaughter" (Shakespeare, William) because he will not be able to reach heaven, perhaps to see his father. To Hamlet, death would be bittersweet since it would represent a reunion with his father as well as the elimination of his pain regarding his mother's marriage to Claudius. This is a reference to suicide, and Shakespeare does an excellent job of juxtaposing these thoughts of mortality and sin with the term "everlasting." These stark contrasts help highlight the emotion and polarity of Hamlet's thoughts and feelings, as well as his actions, which become less and less genuine relative to his thoughts as the play moves forward.

Hamlet's line, "Fie on't, ah fie, 'tis an unweeded garden that grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature possess it merely." (Shakespeare, William) shows that he considers his mother's marriage to Claudius as an act of tainting a pure or virginal garden. He sees his mother as a garden that has come to seed or fruition with weeds and other rank possessive entities. He remembers the pure adoration and attention that his mother had paid his father before his father's death, and cannot comprehend how she can have the same respect for Claudius, stating, "Why, she would hang on him as if increase of appetite had grown by what it fed on; and yet within a month -let me not think on't - Frailty, thy name is woman." (Shakespeare, William) Hamlet believes that his mother could never have the same love for Claudius as she had for his own father, and understands her actions as the actions of a frail, desperate woman. He states that she cried "unrighteous tears" (Shakespeare, William) after his father's death, believing that she was insincere in her mourning. Hamlet says, "O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason would have mourned longer!" (Shakespeare, William) He is comparing his mother's lack of mourning to the idea that even a beast would have mourned for a longer period before remarrying.

Hamlet compares his father to Claudius on two separate occasions using Greek Gods. To Hamlet, Claudius could never compare to his father. "So excellent a king, that was to this Hyperion to a satyr" (Shakespeare, William) is a Shakespearian juxtaposition used to compare Old Hamlet with Claudius. Hamlet alludes to Hyperion, the God of Light who represents not only honor and virtue, but also nobility, which are all traits Hamlet saw in his own father. The half-human, half-beast satyr creature represents hedonism and excess, similar to the way Hamlet regards Claudius. Finally he compares the two men as Hercules to himself, a mortal man. He truly believes that Claudius does not represent his mother's best intentions and that he could never live up to his father's image and character.

To Hamlet, Claudius represents the fall of his mother. He says, "She married. O, most wicked speed, to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets!" (Shakespeare, William) He sees Claudius as an impure tempter, and believes that his mother lost her purity in his incestuous sheets. Claudius is Hamlet's uncle, but it is not out of the question to wonder if Hamlet's protective nature is somehow driven by some sort of oedipal desire for his own mother (Lacan, Jacques; Miller, Alain; and Hulbert, James, 11), no matter how non-sexual in nature that desire may be. In Hamlet's time, the church frowned upon incest, yet in the royal circles, it was common for one family member to marry another in order to keep the throne and chain of command in the family blood line. Even so, Hamlet is disgusted by his mother's marriage to his father's brother, and anguishes at the haste with which the marriage is conducted.

The soliloquy is extremely important to the plot of the play, and gives the audience a look inside Hamlet's mind. It shows the contempt that he holds for Claudius and his mother's relationship, and the high esteem and respect that he holds for his father, even in death. There are a multitude of literary elements at work in this soliloquy, and the serious undertone and personal nature of Hamlet's words reveal the inner turmoil that plagues the price throughout the play. Shakespeare uses juxtaposition and dark, rank imagery to accomplish comparisons that can only make sense through the angered and mourning eyes of Hamlet himself. Hamlet's words also lend insight into his actions later on in the play, and create a foundation of understanding that the audience has as Hamlet's world begins to turn upside down culminating in the deaths of many of his beloved friends and relatives.