-
Essay / Soliloquies of Shakespeare's Hamlet - Hamlet's Third...
Hamlet's Third SoliloquyOne of Shakespeare's most famous works is the play The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Hamlet, the main character, endures many of life's misfortunes that the average – and not so average – person might experience. Hamlet's father dies a suspicious death and his mother hastily remarries. He experiences the trauma of a lost relationship with a girl he seems to truly love, realizes the truth about his own uncle's involvement in his father's death, and experiences it all in public. eye. What makes the character of Hamlet particularly captivating compared to most of Shakespeare's other characters is the fact that he truly seems to come alive with thought and emotion. Hamlet feels the grief over the loss of his father and the sense of betrayal he feels when he learns that Claudius is responsible for the death, not to mention that his mother quickly married the murderer. The weight of these emotions pushes Hamlet to the edge of his limits, and soon he comes to the point of contemplating death. In the first scene of the third act, Hamlet delivers a thoughtful monologue on the issues of life and suicide. This soliloquy seems to be one of the most believable moments in a Shakespearean play, because every person faces at least one of these dramatic, self-contemplational moments in their life. The reader or audience is able to understand Hamlet's thoughts despite Shakespeare's thick and long writing style. Hamlet begins here with the famous line “To be or not to be, that is the question” (III, i, 64), a line quite often copied or even satirized because of its frankness and depth. Hamlet immediately...... middle of paper ...... Shakespeare uses Hamlet's third soliloquy to contemplate and even confront the fears that torment the human heart. Reasoning leads humanity to fear the unknown – both in the afterlife and the present – because we cannot know what the future holds, and there is no no security there. For what seems to be the first time, Shakespeare's words extend beyond the pretense of Elizabethan English and become part of a universal language. It focuses less on the puns and more on the message behind the words. In the voice of Hamlet, Shakespeare contemplates life, death, fear, and fearlessness to find the roots of man's will to action and why those actions sometimes fail. Hamlet's soliloquy, for which William Shakespeare is responsible, is truly one of the most unique and honest moments in any play in history..