How to Analyze a Soliloquy
A. The purpose of a soliloquy is threefold:
1. To reveal character
2. To advance the plot
3. To create atmosphere
PART ONE: CHARACTERISTICS
1. Look for strong emotions
Usually the speaker will display negative emotions such as anger, doubt, fear, melancholy, etc. The emotions are
often exaggerated.
Ie/ “O that this too sullied flesh would melt…”
2. Interjections, invocations, supplications
The letter “O” will usually begin a soliloquy. The use of the letter is threefold:
a. Interjection—to interrupt a conversation or indicate surprise
b. Invocation—to call on a ghost, spirit or other entity
c. Supplication—to cry out in agony or despair, or to plead
3. Allusions
Shakespeare often interjected allusion in his plays. They are almost all in reference to Greek mythology but some
will refer to Roman mythology or even the Bible.
ie/ “So excellent a king, that was to this/ Hyperion…” (1.2.139-140)
“Like Niobe…” (1.2.149)
“…but no more like my father/ Than I to Hercules…” (1.2.153)
4. Enumeration
The speaker will usually be excessively dramatic in his words. This is to add emphasis to the speaker’s disdain.
Ie/ How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable…” (1.2.133)
5. Metaphors and Extended Metaphors
The speaker will compare a character to something and will sometimes continue this comparison through
elaboration.
Ie/ “tis an unweeded garden/That grows to seed.”
6. Repetition
Repetition is a rhetorical device used for emphasis. The further heightens the emotions expressed by the speaker.
Ie/ “Fie on’t, ah fie…” (1.2.135)
“…within a month…” (1.2.145), “A little month…” (1.2.147) “Within a month… (1.2.153)
7. Antithesis
The contrast in ideas reflects the duality of the speaker’s emotions or thoughts.
Ie/ “Heaven and earth…” (1.2.142)
8. Personification
Personification is shown by
a. animals speaking and acting like humans
b. an abstract concept capitalized and genderized
c. an inanimate object speaking and/acting like a human.
Ie/ “…the Everlasting had not fixes his canon..” (1.2.131)
“…frailty, they name is woman…” (1.2.146)
Part Two: Critical Analysis and Interpretation
1. The character reflects on an event that has just transpired.
The Mother’s Soliloquy (1.2)
O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dewl
Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d
His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
(lines 129-134)
A. Hamlet wishes that he could die.
B. He cannot kill himself because it is against
canon law.
C. Hamlet has no desire to live. The world
is a cruel place.
2. The character reflects on his/her feelings, thus revealing his/her exact thoughts.
Fie on’t! ah fie! ‘tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; thing rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead; nay, not so much, not two:
So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly.
(lines 135-142)
D. Hamlet compares Claudius to a weed in a
garden that is growing
E. The kingdom is now rotten because Claudius
is king
F. Hamlet laments the short amount of time his
father has been dead.
G. Hamlet compares his father to Hyperion, the
Greek sun god implying that he was a good
king.
H. Hamlet Sr. was very kind towards Gertrude
3. The speaker addresses an abstract concept and agonizes over what is tormenting him.
Heaven and earth/
Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on: and yet, within a month--
I. Hamlet does not want to reflect on his father’s
death and his mother’s remarriage.
J. Hamlet cannot believe that Gertrude remarried so
quickly.
4. The speaker continues to agonize over his/her situation.
Let me not think on’t—Frailty thy name is woman!—
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she follow’d my poor father’s body
Like Niobe, all tears:-- why she, even she—
O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn’d longer—married with my uncle,
(lines 146-151)
K. Hamlet wishes to forget.
L. Through personification, Hamlet is saying
all women are weak, especially his mother.
M. Hamlet compares Gertrude to Niobe,
implying that she hasn’t properly mourned
her husband’s death.
N. Gertrude should have taken longer to
mourn Hamlet Sr.’s death.
5. The speaker concludes by deciding on a course of action or is left pondering the situation.
My father’s brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules: within a month:
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not nor it cannot come to good:
But break, my hear; for I must hold my tongue.
(lines 152-158)
O. Hamlet does not like his relation to
Claudius; he make an analogy with
Hercules (2 unrelated things)
P. One month of mourning was not enough
before remarrying.
Q. Hamlet hates how Gertrude married so
quickly.
R. Claudius and Gertrude’s marriage is
considered incest because Claudius took
his dead brother’s wife, according to canon
law.
S. Hamlet predicts that there will be trouble.