Hamlet

Shakespeare's characterization of Hamlet changes through the course of the play. It is most evident in an examination of his soliloquies. The progression of Hamlet is from an innocent person to a murderous madman.

In Act II, Hamlet is blaming himself for many problems. He is angry with himself because he has done nothing with his plan to kill Claudius. It also bothers Hamlet he is not as emotional as the actor on the stage, who is portraying him. "O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!/Is it not monstrous that this player here,/But in fiction, in a dream of passion,/Could force his soul so to his own conceit/That from her working all his visage wann'd,/Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,/A broken voice, and his whole function suiting. With forms to his conceit?"

In this soliloquy, he is questioning how other people become emotional. He asks what Hecuba means to the mere actor on stage, who cried because of her. He wonders what he would do, had the actor had the same reasons to cry as Hamlet had. He says:

"What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, /that he should weep for her?/What would he do,/Had he the motive and the cue for passion that I have? "

He answers his own questions. He says that the actor would "drown the stage with tears" and "cleave the general ear with horrid speech." He does not talk about his mother at all in this soliloquy. He is, however, still disgusted by what has just happened. He hates Claudius and talks about him more in this soliloquy. He says:

"I should have fatted all the region kites/With this slave's offal: bloody, bawdy villain!/Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!"

Towards the end of the play, he comes up with yet another plan to find out for sure if Claudius indeed murdered his father. He stops assaulting himself and starts to talk more declaratively about his new plan.

Even at the very start of Hamlet's soliloquy in Act III, it is evident that he is in a more thoughtful mood.

"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 end them? "

These are Hamlet's well-known lines. He is not attacking himself in this soliloquy; rather he is contemplating an issue. He is talking about mankind as a whole, as opposed to himself personally.

He compares death to sleep, and argues that man does not know what dreams he will see during death. He argues that the reason people don't commit suicide, is because