Question

Choose a soliloquy in the play, such as the famous "To be or not to be" speech in Act 3, Scene 1, lines 57-89. Summarize the ideas in the soliloquy, and discuss the literary techniques Shakespeare employs to express them. Provide specific examples.

Answer 1

Answer:

In Act I, Scene 2, Hamlet delivers a famous soliloquy in which he compares the world around him to "an unweeded garden ; That grows to seed".

In this soliloquy, Hamlet expresses his anger for his mother's sudden marriage to his uncle:

"She married. O most wicked speed, to post

With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!"

He states that his father has been dead for less than two months, yet his mother got married again. He compares the marriage of his uncle and mother to an incest, aware that this "is not nor it cannot come to good".

In this soliloquy, Shakespeare employs different literary techniques to make it more persuasive:

• "O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, / Thaw and resolve itself into a dew! " This is an example of a synechdoche, a type of metaphor in which a part represents the whole or vice versa. Flesh, in this case, stands for physical life.

• Hamlet uses metaphor in a famous line given above, where he compares the world to an "unweeded garden" (a garden that no one is taking care of).

• When Hamlet says "Frailty, thy name is woman", he addresses "frailty" directly, which is an example of personification. Hamlet criticizes the whole female gender for being too frail and weak. Another example of a personification is the above-mentioned line in which Hamlet mentions "incestuous sheets"

• At the end of the soliloquy, Hamlet uses understatement, also referred to as a meiosis, when he claims that all this "is not nor it cannot come to good".  Understatement is when the speaker makes a situation less important/serious than it actually is. In this case, Hamlet's last line is a mild statement when compared to the events that took place.