Dset

Hamlet, one of Shakespeare’s tragic plays, represents the story of a young man’s quest to avenge his murdered father and his quest to find his true identity.   In his soliloquies, Prince Hamlet reveals to the readers his personal insights of the events that take place in his homeland, Denmark, and of which are either indirectly or directly tied to his father’s murder.   Many critics and scholars agree that while Hamlet’s soliloquies reveal the search of his identity and true character, his soliloquies generally illustrate man’s search for his true identity.
The first soliloquy of Hamlet takes place early in the play, and Hamlet expresses his tearful feelings to the reader and how he wishes that God “had not fixed his cannon ‘gainst self-slaughter.”   He explains that only two months after his father’s death, his mother “married with my uncle, my father’s brother, but no more like my father than I to Hercules.”   While Hamlet does not examine his identity or character immediately, he illustrates the cause of his sorrow.   Hamlet also contrasts his father from his uncle saying that they have nothing in common like he does to Hercules.   This could be an original offense of his own character, and by contrasting himself to Hercules – a symbol of strength in both body and mind, he suggests that he lacks self-worth or self-esteem.   Nevertheless, it is apparent to the reader that Hamlet is suicidal, as he contemplates it within the first line of the soliloquy.
In his next soliloquy Hamlet reveals his conflict: he knows he must avenge his father, but he hesitates to commit pre-meditated murder.   He calls himself a “rogue and peasant slave” and states that he, the “player in a fiction, in a dream of passion,” is not hurried to his cause, and “can say nothing for a king upon whose property and most dear life a damned defeat was made.”   He condemns himself and asks: “Am I a coward?   Who calls me villain? Breaks my pate across? Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face?   I...