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Hamlet Soliloquy Rhetorical Devices

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CLAIM: Hamlet’s soliloquy in act 3, scene i, reveals that he is volatile exhibited by his self-loathing, recurrent suicidal thoughts, and obsession with the afterlife. This sudden shift is caused by his father’s death and mother’s speedy recovery. Body 1: “To be, or not to be--that is the question” Put simply, Hamlet is contemplating whether it's better to struggle through the trials of life or commit suicide. Shakespeare uses antithesis, a rhetorical device in which a contrast of ideas is expressed through a parallelism of words that are strongly contrasted with each other. The use of this rhetorical device sheds a light on a repeated theme, Hamlet’s consideration of committing suicide. It is already obvious from the first line that Hamlet …show more content…

Hamlet is making the argument that humans often pick life over death because of the fear of the unknown-but chooses to ask it in the form of a rhetorical question. Hamlet uses the imagery with words like“grunt” and “sweat” to voice his view that living is an unsavory burden through which one labors. In reality, death isn’t an “undiscovered country” it is universal, and every living thing experiences it at some point. However humans still think of it as undiscovered, simply because no one has come back from the dead. Hamlet paints an unsavory picture of the afterlife. Hamlet characterizes death as “flight”, implying an immediate continuation from where one leaves off. One experiences hardships in life, and then flees to death, and receives those same problems. So then Hamlet wonders if it's better to go through with the assured bad things in life rather than run to death's "undiscovered country." His affliction is because he doesn't want to keep on living when he is depressed about his uncle murdering his father and marrying his mom, but the uncertainty of death is also worrisome. Hamlet's thoughts are very troubling. His fixation on the afterlife exemplifies his suicidal tendencies. Hamlet’s rhetorical question thus serves the purpose of conveying his conflicted emotions, and to delve, with painstaking consumption, into the disadvantages of dying. Shakespeare is implicating that Hamlet’s emotions and reasonability are inextricably linked which is why he sees no light at the end of the tunnel. This further demonstrates that Hamlet is unstable because he is so encapsulated in his own depression and sees no way to get

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