Mental Health

Hamlet

First Soliloquy

“how weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, Seem to me all the uses of this world!”

Hamlet

First Soliloquy

“how weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, Seem to me all the uses of this world!”

• Superfluous use of adjectives → Hamlet’s angst with this life

• repetition of the bleak language as a power of three

• Hamlet deep appreciation and loyalty to his father, → loss has left him suicidal

• First three words are  monosyllabic in ‘weary’ ‘stale’ and ‘flat’ → everything is  animalistic and immoral.

• forces the audience to listen to Hamlet’s words → they punctuate and accentuate Hamlet’s dialogue.

  • ‘unprofitable’ is the only exception.

    • highlights irony because others have served to profit from Hamlet’s predicament → Claudius

Hamlet

First Soliloquy

“Seem to me all the uses of this world!”

• Exclamatory phrase → disgust with Claudius taking the throne

  • places Hamlet in an enigmatic predicament → forced to decide if Claudius is an uncle, an incestuous family member or a father to him.

    • question to the audience about the true relationship between father and sons in families whilst simultaneously conveying the grief Hamlet is in.

Hamlet

First Soliloquy

“Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!”

• Second line of soliloquy

• rhetorical repetition of the religious language, “God”  → conveys desperation Hamlet is in

• exclamatory phrase emphasises Hamlet is pleading with the divine for comfort to ease his grief.

  • Context = Hamlet → Christian;

  • God-fearing man and bound by the Christian doctrine, would be sinful for Hamlet to commit suicide → Christians belived you would go straight to hell if you died by your own hand.

  • Hamlet = overcome by grief → his Christian belief is the only argument preventing him from commiting suicide.

• “slaughter,” → dramatic and deadly imagery

• conveys Hamlet’s own tragic thoughts

  • reflects how Hamlet views himself  – connotations of the verb commonly refers to the killing of animals.

    • Hamlet dehumanises himself to cope with grief

Hamlet

First Soliloquy

tis an unweeded garden, That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature.”

• unweeded garden = world itself.

  • Hamlet opines that the world is possessed solely by things rank and gross in nature and crucially including himself.

    • conveys the self-loathing Hamlet has for himself and simultaneously for Denmark as it is corrupted by actions he cannot control.

• Hamlet’s father’s death and mother’s “o'erhasty marriage” → Hamlet views human society as mere animality, without nobility or comprehension but only force and possession.

  • suggests that sexuality itself becomes for him a “rank,” “gross,” rampant force,

    • like an infestation of weeds as the incesterous marriage leaves Hamlet in despair.

Hamlet

First Soliloquy

“O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!”

• “resolve” → Hamlet’s own self-loathing to himself

  • to cope with the lack of control, Hamlet dramatically turns to violence as a cry for help as a result of Claudius’s Denmark.

    • repetition of the adverb “too”  → persuasion of the audience of his despair and revulsion of Claudius and his new Denmark.

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Quote

Hamlet’s conscious, Harold Bloom

“infinite, unlimited and at war with itself,”

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Play

Contemplation of suicide, Duran 2009

Hamlet looks directly into the camera in the dark as he says, “to die, to sleep, to die”

• looking at audience for help

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Play

vulnerability to audience, Laurence Olivier 1948

utilises props as a tool to convey Hamlet’s suicidal thoughts.

• Context  = Psychoanalysis became the most dominant lens through which the play was interpreted in the mid 20th century

  • conveyed when Hamlet held a, “bare bodkin” towards his chest whilst standing at a cliff-edge.

  • the audience witnesses a visual interpretation of Hamlet’s uncertainty and the weight of his decision; it would be physically easy for him to kill himself.

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Critic

De-yan 2009 → Hamlet and masculinity

Hamlet who has an idealistic view of man and a meditative temperament is ashamed of the death of masculinity in his character especially compared to the other men around him

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Critic

AW Schlegle → 18th century

Hamlet has no belief in himself or anything else

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Viewpoint

20th century

downplayed psychological emphasis on play characters such as Gertrude had more influence on Hamlet

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Play

Brannagh → 1990 Polonius and Ophelia

Ophelia is romanticised in her madness → corruption