How Does Shakespeare Use Dramatic Irony In Hamlet

Through imagery, anaphoras, and irony surrounding madness and tragedy, Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, demonstrates how anarchy is created within one’s own psyche, which challenges the mental stability of a person's attitude. A person’s mental outlook can affect others around them. Madness can cause uneasiness, confusion, and desperation. Hamlet initiates madness within himself which creates obstacles which accumulate into a catastrophe.

Shakespeare shows how mental stability hinges on chaos. Accordingly, Hamlet proclaims to Horatio that he will act manically for some time. Shakespeare uses dramatic irony to lead the audience to feel more involved. It also adds a certain eeriness to some of Hamlet's comments later in the play relating to whether

Hamlet will tell Ophelia something nice, then dispute himself by insulting her. Hamlet writes a love letter to Ophelia and repeats the first words of each line: “Doubt thou…Doubt that…Doubt truth” (2.2). In the quote, Shakespeare uses an anaphora, and this choice creates sincerity in the letter. The audience may wonder if he poses as maniacal now or as mentally sound, relating to how far his madness has evolved. The author also writes, “But never doubt I love,” in which lies a paradox where Hamlet contradicts himself by saying Ophelia may have a reason to not love him, but Hamlet loves her. The paradox shows that Hamlet has not always been truthful to himself and is also maybe not true to Ophelia either. Despite not being true to himself, the letter creates a better intimacy between Hamlet and Ophelia due to the fact that it makes her feel as if she belongs with him. Although Hamlet confesses his love to Ophelia often, he gives her emotional whiplash from contradicting himself about

Her father, brother, and Hamlet control Ophelia’s actions. Eventually, she gets fed up with everything between her father dying and Hamlet causing emotional whiplash. Subsequently, Ophelia goes mad. Ophelia was hanging up a wreath next to a river and fell in. From the words of Queen Gertrude, “There, on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds / Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke; / When down her weedy trophies herself.” Gertrude describes the scene as where “willow grows as many a brook” and “the glassy stream” (4.6). She also compares life to death as seen in the following evidence, “Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, / Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay / To muddy death.” This death as well as many more are very elaborate by the cause of speculations that Ophelia committed suicide by jumping into the river instead of falling in as Gertrude told considering her emotional state. Laertes challenges Hamlet to a duel and Hamlet accepts the