The play Hamlet is one of the most dubious and intriguing works of William Shakespeare. The author shows Hamlet, an educated man, always in the search process, with a deep sense of empathy for everything that surrounds him. However, life forces him to face true evil in various manifestations. With the help of literary elements, the playwright not only delved deep into the main character and his feeling but exposed the reader to the harsh reality. Stylistic devices and the tone of the tragedy establish the atmosphere of the play and navigate the reader through the most dramatic parts of the tragedy.
As for literary devices, the first device used by the author is alliteration, which the reader encounters at the beginning of the play. “Therefore I have entreated him along, / With us to watch the minutes of this night” (Shakespeare 3). Marcellus informs Horatio about the Ghost, who is actually the father of Hamlet. Shakespeare used repetition of the letter “w” to heighten the intensity of the Ghost’s terror. The letter ‘w’ appears again in this line as “with us to watch.” Thus, alliteration intensifies the feelings of not only the characters but readers as well.
Another literary device used by the author is a metaphor that reinforces the poetic rhythm of the play. The most obvious metaphor is used in the passage: “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?” (Shakespeare 66). In this ambiguous metaphor, Hamlet compares his tragedies to an adversary with “slings and arrows,” and after, he compares them to the sea, which threatens to drown him in sorrows. The character mulls over whether it is more heroic to suffer through his hardships or prepare himself and strike back.
Incorporating imagery is another approach to pique the attention of the audience. “This bodes some strange eruption to our state”: Horatio employs visual imagery in this passage, claiming that the roaming Ghost bodes some odd rupture to the situation (Shakespeare 5). The visual picture depicts the escalation of the scenario since the entrance of the Ghost. This imagery is undeniably colorful, inventive, and symbolic in the sense that the country or state in which they reside cannot physically erupt like a volcano.
Another literary element that reflects the relationship that the author and narrator have to the events is the tone. At the beginning of the play, Hamlet’s attitude is gloomy and melancholy; he is constantly asking the one question – “to be, or not to be” (Shakespeare 66). However, when he is granted the mission of punishing the murderer of his father, his determination to discover the truth fills him with purpose and focus. The reader has an opportunity to view his hardships as challenges.
As the play develops and he is unable to find a suitable solution, he grows progressively upset, striking more irrationally, viciously, and carelessly until the final tragedy. Thus, the tone of the narration, or the writer’s perception of the incidents, appears to be hopeful at the start, when it appears that punishment could be accomplished (Mohammed). However, the tone is grimmer as the play progresses, and it appears that achieving justice or forgiveness in a circumstance like this is inconceivable.
Hamlet contains a remarkable amount of humorous situations and figures for a tragedy, and the play’s dark humor contributes to the diversity and complexity of the tone. For most of the tragedy, the main character ridicules Polonius, and the reader is tempted to smile along with him at the older man. Nevertheless, after Hamlet kills Polonius, the reader is outraged that the character keeps laughing at the elderly man: “This councillor / Is now most still, most secret and most grave, / Who was in life a foolish, prating knave” (Shakespeare 100). This scene induces mixed feelings and makes the reader questions the character’s sanity.
The reader is also urged to laugh at Hamlet when experiencing his worst moments. When the character falls to Ophelia’s grave, Hamlet confesses his love for her in ridiculous words: “What wilt thou do for her? […] eat a crocodile?” (Shakespeare 135). The comedy in this scene is unsettling since Hamlet’s conduct is painfully unacceptable. This unpleasant comedy strengthens the play’s depressing tone. Still, it also adds complexity by distancing the reader from Hamlet’s plight and asking them to consider how serious they should be about him.
Hence, both tone and stylistic devices in Hamlet navigate the reader through the play and enliven certain events, making the reader experience a full array of emotions. While the stylistic devices accentuated specific phrases and paragraphs, inducing certain emotions and highlighting the poetic rhythm of the narration, the tone made the reader experience dubious emotions, specifically wanting to laugh at sad moments. On top of the most prominent roles of the tragedy’s literary elements, Shakespeare highlights the internal anguish of the character and his path.
Works Cited
Mohammed, Raed Fadhil. “A Pragmatic Approach to Shakespeare’s Hamlet.” Journal of Misan Researches, vol.15, no.29, 2019, pp. 447-477.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet: A Tragedy. W. Engelmann, 1849.