A Brief Overview of Hamlets Characterization through His Soliloquies - Term Paper Example

A Brief Overview of Hamlet’s Characterization through His Soliloquies Introduction: To be or not to be – that is the defining proclamation of mergingor demarcating the thin boundary between all actions and inactions of human life. This dilemma as well as the demarcation is well portrayed by the acclaimed playwright William Shakespeare through the character of Hamlet, the protagonist of Hamlet. An appropriate way of elaborating these issues along with the protagonist’s characterization is by means of looking into his soliloquies or ‘self-speaking’. Hamlet’s dilemma of developing a purpose and determination for action, which eventually converts into inactivity and the tragic end of the play, demands a serious speculation. Hamlet’s characterization through soliloquies: The complexity of action as well as the impossibility of certainty is prominently highlighted when it comes to discussing the execution of revenge by Hamlet, the protagonist in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The lack of self-confidence and hindrance of inaction of the protagonist distinguishes the play remarkably apart from other revenge plays in English literature. Shakespeare portrays Hamlet as an able yet reluctant hero who is characteristically more prone to apprehension than to action. This is the case of his dilemma: of realizing the truth behind his father’s murder followed by the ghostly encounter, of acknowledging the plan of revenge and yet choosing to postpone this action. This thin demarcation between action and inaction is prominently expressed in the innermost thoughts of Hamlets, what is more appropriately known as Hamlet’s soliloquies or his self-conversation. To be or Not to be: “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 them end them. To die, to sleep...” (Shakespeare, Act III Scene I, Hamlet) Among the soliloquies of Hamlet in the play, the most debated one expressing the protagonist’s innermost projections is the “To be or not to be” soliloquy from Act III, Scene I of Hamlet. It most undoubtedly holds the central place of the entire discussion of action and inaction on the part of the protagonist for planning his ‘revenge’. Indeed the soliloquies speak of more action than does the protagonist himself. In Davies’ (2008) words, “Hamlet is rarely more dynamic or on the move as a character than in the action of his soliloquies, which remain the vehicles for an unfolding ‘drama of thought’ throughout Hamlet rather than expressions of a fixed kind of ‘dramatized thinking’. In soliloquy, we have the Hamlet who is ready ‘to drink hot blood’ in Act III, Scene II, and yet who refuses to kill Claudius in Act III, Scene III; who knows not why he lives ‘to say this thing’s to do’ in Act IV, Scene IV, but even at this most hopeless point, implicitly recognizes that ‘this thing’s to do’ while yet he lives.” (Davies 64) ‘To be or not to be’ is also the answer to the thin demarcation between life and death. In Newell’s (1991) words, “In the ‘To be’ soliloquy, as Hamlet faces an action of great consequence under the most distressing of personal circumstances, he thinks about the meaning and doubtful efficacy of action in a world where life seems to be a chance-afflicted losing enterprise.” (Newell 158) As Hamlet discovers about the murder, his expression of a justified action against it eventually turns into an action of apprehension. Instead of planning any revenge, the protagonist comprehends the terms of action as a logical explanation of suicide in an unbearably painful world. Hamlet poses another connotation with ‘To be or not to be’: he questions whether to live or not to live. His dilemma circles around his inability to decide whether it is nobler to suffer the pains of life or to embrace death as freedom from this ambiguous world. This soliloquy explicably echoes the innermost misery of the protagonist in his inability to decide his mind either to kill himself or determine a plan of action to avenge the murder of his father. Then Hamlet shifts from personal to general where he asks why humans put up with their burdens and pain when they have a means to escape. His frustrations express misery of human life: although humans can choose whether to die or not, they can never control ‘what dreams may come’. This thought dissuades the protagonist from embracing death at this point of time. The question of to be or not to be reveals the protagonist’s innermost conflict of to live or not to live, or to die or not to die, and hence, his dilemma of to act or not to act. Now Might I do it: “Now might I do it pat, now he is praying; And now I’ll do’t. And so he goes to heaven; And so am I revenged...” (Shakespeare, Act III Scene III, Hamlet) Hamlet’s plan of revenge comes to the forefront again in Act III, Scene III where he is finally ready to put his desire for revenge into action after being convinced by Claudius’s guilt watching the play. But then it is almost a radical revenge. The protagonist now realizes his uncle’s guilt and wants to pray for him. Then he waits to ponder that he is not even aware of his own father’s death situations. Hamlet thinks that revenge should involve justice. He thinks that killing Claudius while praying would send him to heaven, which would definitely not be a justified punishment for a man who killed his father in the most unexpected of situations. In a nutshell, Hamlet’s inaction stands firm as the main fact throughout his articulation of self-speaking. Price (1986) provides a possible argumentation explaining the protagonist’s inaction, “The action required of Hamlet is very exceptional. It is violent, dangerous, difficult to accomplish perfectly, on one side repulsive to a man of honor and sensitive feeling, on another side involved in a certain mystery. These obstacles would not suffice to prevent Hamlet from acting, if his state were normal; and against them there operate, even in his morbid state, healthy and positive feelings, love of his father, loathing of his uncle, desire of revenge, desire to do duty. But the retarding motives acquire an unnatural strength because they have an ally in something far stronger than themselves, the melancholic disgust and apathy; while the healthy motives, emerging with difficulty from the central mass of diseased feeling, rapidly sink back into it and ‘lose the name of action.’” (Price 222) How All Occasions do Inform Against Me: “How all occasions do inform against me, And spur my dull revenge! What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed?...” (Shakespeare, Act IV Scene IV, Hamlet) In fact, the expression of Hamlet’s realization and plan of revenge and then his delayed action is extended for further explanation in Act IV, Scene IV. The soliloquy in this Scene, ‘How all occasions do inform against me’, rearticulates Hamlet’s character highlighting the quality of his revenge. The self-speaking brings out the question of the protagonist’s ‘dull revenge’ explaining “how often Hamlet seems to pause in his revenge” (Davies 64). Hamlet’s soliloquy questions why he has delayed his action of revenge. It further questions the nature of man and honor. Hamlet’s dilemma between the action of revenge and the delayed inaction is further complemented by his realization about the quest for honor. Hamlet thinks it is ridiculous to wait for the quest of honor or to seek it out. Conclusion: Hamlet’s dilemma of action and inaction is central to the misery of his life and the ones surrounding him, thus contributing considerably to the tragic consequence of the play. The failure of revenge on the protagonist’s part is not affected as much by the unavoidable force of external events as by Hamlet’s incapability to win over his own innermost conflicts. What differs Hamlet from other revenge plays is the Shakespearean element particular to Hamlet that the action of revenge from the protagonist as expected by the audience is postponed time and again. While Hamlet is convinced of his father’s murder by Claudius, by means of the play enacted in the latter’s presence as well as the encounter of his father’s apparition, he is still occupied with questions about the dilemma of being or not being, plotting the revenge or not, and even further, to live or to die. The questions to himself (through his soliloquies) pose as the hindrances to Hamlet’s action of revenge. Hamlet also questions the nature of man and honor. To him, the reason(s) for his action should speak for its justification. But when he thinks and questions further about the revenge along with the miseries and pains of life, he seems to justify the delay of his action. In short, the demarcation between action and inaction is thin and hazy enough to go parallel while trying to elaborate the character of the protagonist. To conclude, Hamlet’s misery is formed by his own inability to realize the relevance of his revenge and then put it into action. In Price’s (1986) words, “Hamlet’s melancholy is his own inability to understand why he delays…”Why,” he asks himself in genuine bewilderment, “do I linger? Can the cause be cowardice? Can it be sloth? Can it be thinking too precisely of the event?”...these are the questions of a man stimulated for the moment to shake off the weight of his melancholy, and, because for the moment he is free from it, unable to understand the paralyzing pressure which it exerts at other times.” (Price s225) Works cited: 1. Davies, Michael. Hamlet: Character Studies. London: Continuum, 2008. 2. Newell, Alex. The Soliloquies in Hamlet The Structural Design. Massachusetts: Associated University Presses, 1991. 3. Price, Joseph G. ed. Hamlet: Critical Essays. New York: Routledge, 1986. 4. Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Illustrated by Javier Zabala. Madrid: Nordica Libros, 2012. Read More