Hamlet: Shakespeare’s Rubik’s Cube

To get a good initial handle on Hamlet as a person, Shakespeare gives him a soliloquy in Act 1, Scene ii. In this speech, Hamlet’s madness, intelligence, and views of his mother’s relationship with his uncle are surfaced. Hamlet begins by saying, “O that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,” meaning he wishes he was dead and buried. “Flesh would melt,” is figurative language for his body to decompose, and then he would not hav

Hamlet’s character is one of the most complex and thought provoking in all plays. His wit, madness, intelligence, and tactical warfare make him into a superhero. I believe a character is only as deep as its author, and William Shakespeare is a multifaceted man with the ability to conjure up such a character. Hamlet is one of the only characters who make you believe murder is justified when you are protecting your heritage or avenging the death of a family member. Not once in the play did I question if what Hamlet was plotting was morally right, because he lays all the facts out on the table with no secrets. He went about it in a precautious, not reckless sense, by having the players act out his play to be certain what the ghost told him was true. Hamlet’s skepticism makes him to be one of the most exciting and enticing characters of all plays.

Hamlet’s most known soliloquy is located in Act 3, Scene i. This speech opens Hamlet up more to the idea of suicide and reveals his suicidal tendencies. After losing a father and having his mother remarry to his uncle only a few short months after the King’s unexpected death, Hamlet wallows around the castle speaking of death. He either wants to die himself, or kill Claudius and have his revenge. The first line, “To be, or not to be; that is the question:” is Hamlet just beginning to contemplate the idea of suicide. He tries to justify why he must stay alive. In lines 58-62, punctuation is a key element. When the lines are read by pausing on the commas, it sounds as if Hamlet is slowly dying and losing breath; especially with the use of the hyphen, “To die, to sleep-”. He weighs the two ideas of death and sleep, which are related in that sleep feels like a much milder death. He goes on to explain himself by saying when you sleep you have the ability to abolish any problems you have in the conscious world (3.1.63-65). He continues to say if you sleep then you have that chance to dream, but he i

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