Renaissance period : Hamlet soliloquy.
lets have a journey of internal thoughts along with Hamlet!
Samiya y kagdi
samiyakagdi313@gmail.com
samiyakagdi313.blogspot.com
Roll No : 32
Semester : 1(1st year)
Assignment topic : Detailed analysis of Hamlet’s soliloquies.
Submitted to: S. B. Gardi, department of English {Dilip Barad (Sir)}, MKBU University.
Abstract
Soliloquies are something that is related with internal emotions and feelings, chanting in aloud that can take place usually when person is alone. As here we are concern with Hamlet we would see how he is chanting his ongoing mental procedure, especially when in melancholy, enantiodromia kind of state etc.
Keywords
Soliloquy, Hamlet, internal emotions, Melancholy, enantiodromia.
Introduction
As we know “William Shakespeare” belongs to ‘Elizabethan Era’ from (1550-1620) and as he was unconcerned about the “three unities” introduced by “Aristotle” his plays were said to be unsystematically produced and hamlet belongs to one of them.
Hamlet soliloquy
In this soliloquy we would see how frustrated by his life, he is willing to sacrifice it but restraint himself because according to “Christianity it is sin”.
"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! God"!
Moving forward to the other lines, it shows ‘Hamlet’s melancholic state’ and something like superficial as what he is feeling he- cannot show to people, he has to adjust him according to people’s requirement/wishes.
“How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! Ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
that grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature”.
To describe melancholic state we have some synonyms like stale/flat/unprofitable that he personally feels for himself. Then it can be presumed that he satirically here tries to portray “Gertrude” and his father’s treatment towards her that “how he was caring and loving by nature that he even won’t allow heavenly wind- to touch her but unfortunately everything seems to be in vain and see how at last his mother "a woman" may be expected of doing something like this.
And he describes…”women as frailty”.
“For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
with most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps-
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits”.
Analyzing this para. As Hamlet has heard from devil (in his father’s form) that his father is being murder and it is his sacred duty to avenge his murder. But he thought perhaps “what he is seeing in front of him in his father’s form is devil and he has such power that he can pleasantly transform himself. So let me check on my own...
Then he plans “a mouse trap” to caught Claudius..
Red-handed, he says, “he will observe him and if he incase finds him guilty, he knows what he has to do (I know my course) for that he has used “belching” word. Which means ‘coming out terrible flame’ but here it may be ‘to see his guilt that appears on his face’ that whether he is burning with that bite of conscience.
"Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds
More relative than this: the play’s the thing
wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king”.
Then he is described by the writer in the state of dilemma. Where he ponders on how he should act? Here his moral and philosophical aspect is seen also psychological enantiodromia aspect of whether to act promptly or to endure what is happening and what has happened till now.
So he says…
“To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous- fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, -
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end”.
Nobler = morality.
Endurance =philosophical aspect.
Enantiodromia = dilemma (to be or not to be).
Prompt action = considered as psychologically weak.
“O, my offence is rank it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon't
A brother's murder. Pray can I not,
Though inclination be as sharp as will”.
Aforementioned soliloquy is spoken by “Claudius”. After the completion of (mouse-trap) play, he inclined (come to realization) his guilt (my offence is rank it smells to heaven) and fears if it would be known to everyone what will happen? Perhaps he would be made to sacrifice his usurped throne and his beloved wife. For whom he has killed his brother.
At this particular time it happens that Hamlet passes through the prayer room strongly willing to kill him but as it is in Christianity (vocal system of accepting prayer) he postpones to, and later on destiny leads him to avenge his father’s murder, during the duel going on between the two “Hamlet & Laertes” which is actually pre – planned by Claudius.
But as it is said..
“One who digs pit for another, himself is destined to fall first(as it is nature’s law)”.
The same happens in Claudius’s case he had poisoned sword and made poisonous drink for Hamlet but God saves him. Instead of blessing him with human’s conspiring death, he is blissed with warrior-like death.
Hence we learnt how in chronological order (Shakespeare) has constructed his play, concerning soliloquies mostly spoken by Hamlet and how then a role into soliloquy is taken by Claudius and which helps to give a complete form to a part of the play.
Work citations
D. Barad,(4th Friday, January, 2013)https://dilipbarad.blogspot.com/2013/01/ma-english-study-material-reading.html: M.A.(with English)sem-1,2: the renaissance period:Hamlet:Hamlet's soliloquies.
