Hamlet Breaking The Fourth Wall Analysis

You are settled in your seat watching the play Hamlet unfold in front of you at the Warner Theatre. The person playing Hamlet is in the middle of one of his many soliloquies and at the end of it, he turns and speaks to the audience for a comedic effect. As an audience member, you are surprised and wonder why Hamlet would break character and talk to an audience instead of speaking to himself or be in conversation with other characters. However, there is a critical scene of the play approaching and you do not understand what is about to take place. In this case, you want to be informed of what is going to happen. As a result, a character steps away from the play and begins talking to the audience. It is common known as breaking the fourth wall. This strategy is used in modern theatre to give the audience an insight to what the characters intentions are as well as what is going on through their minds. Author Clifford Odets details to the reader in his play “Waiting for Lefty” that a major character breaks the fourth wall and talks to the audience which is an essential to the play’s theme. With this strategy, the reader is able to feel and hear the audience’s emotions as well as understand the plot of the play. Breaking the fourth wall is

The audience is dramatized as a group of workers who are emotional and upset about their job situation because they feel they are not being paid the amount they feel they deserved. It was an interesting strategy by Odets to have the workers represent the audience because members of the audience usually do not talk back to the character directly speaking to them. However, it helps the readers understand the back story and summary of the play because without it, it would be very hard to understand why there are five different mini-stories composed into one big