Hamlet and tragedy in Shakespeare's drama

Hamlet's Language

Hamlet is a very complex play with many layers. The tile character often speaks his mind to the audience, but a lot about his character can be gleaned simply from the language he speaks, without even going to the collective meaning of the words he says. Throughout the play, Hamlet's language is negative and hesitant, much like the brooding and indecisive Prince of Denmark himself.

It doesn't take long for this fact to make itself evident. In Act I, scene 2, Hamlet's first with the King and his mother the Queen, his first speech of any length contains nine "nay's, "no's, "not's, and "nor's (I, ii, 76-81). His tone here is anything but uncertain as he describes himself; he seems very certain, but always in the negative, defining always what he is not instead of what he is. This habit of thinking in the negative is further emphasized later in the scene during Hamlet's first soliloquy: "O that this too solid flesh would melt, / Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!" (I, ii, 129-30). Hamlet goes on to wish for many things to have not happened, and prays that other things will not happen -- but he does not wish for any specific remedy to his woes; he defines even his desires in the negative.

Even the lighter moments of the play, such as Hamlet's advice to the players, is full of negative language. The advice is largely what not to do, with the only positive direction to get a "smoothness" rather than the rough and choppy negative habits of many actors (III, ii, 8). Hamlet's later soliloquy in Act IV, scene four, is also full of negative admonitions, this time of himself: "How all occasions do inform against me...I do not know / Why yet I live to say 'this thing's to do'" (IV, iv, 32-44).