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Rhetorical Devices Used In Hamlet

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Hamlet
What would you do if you discovered yourself that your very own blood relative murdered your father? Or if that same relative soon after married your newly widowed mother? Would you be able to keep your sanity or would you, too, slowly slip into madness? The novel The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, written by William Shakespeare, is about a prince that discovers the secret of the malicious murder of his father, King Hamlet. The main character of this novel, Hamlet, is seem to be quite a mentally disturbed man after he discovered his deceased fathers murder to be his uncle. Hamlets obsession of uncovering the murder mystery and exposing his uncles lead to his strive for vengeance, yet his procrastinating ways keeps him from doing so. Though he appears sane at the beginning of the novel it is truly obvious he doesn’t remain as so while the plot thickens.
Along with the many rhetorical devices used in Shakespeare’s novel, Hamlet, Sarcasm can be found …show more content…

He describes this relationship as “A little more kin and less than kind” (I.ii.67). He describes the relationship this way because his uncle is now his stepfather instead of his uncle, yet he remains unfriendly and acts as more of an enemy. The quote is said with a sarcastic tone to bring humor to the table while Hamlet talks about the issue, yet it is a true statement about the relationship. Once again showing that Shakespeare used sarcasm as a way to help the audience understand the relationship fully.
Looking from a mental illness standpoint, Hamlet seems to suffer from a mental disorder known as Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). He shows all symptoms of this illness and also fits the criteria of the known causes. It could be argued if Hamlet is acting insane or if his insanity is caused by a mental illness, but the facts show that his insanity seems to be caused by

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Would one be able to live a full prosperous life acting insane? The play Hamlet, written by William Shakespeare, is about a young prince who lost his father and has many issues dealing with his sanity and his family. Hamlet is not crazy because he says he is faking it, he may have severe depression, and he wants to avenge his father. Hamlet is faking being insane for his own sake.

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It is or is it not true that Hamlet was faking his insanity? I’m not saying Hamlet was faking the whole thing. The meaning for insanity on Dictionary.com is “a permanent disorder of the mind.” I don 't think Hamlet had a permanent disorder of the mind he knew what he was doing and even planned the majority of the events that happened. Most of the time anyway.

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There are many examples of times where Hamlet seems truly insane. We have the time when he is talking with Polonius in the castle, after the King, the Queen, and Polonius were discussing the love letter that Hamlet wrote to Ophelia. Hamlet walks in reading a book, and Polonius asks “What do you read, my lord?” Hamlet replies with “Words, words, words.” “What is the matter, my lord” “Between who?”

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He expresses his feeling in his “heart, for I must hold my tongue” (1.2.160). This is an important quote because it is important to understand because it allows to the reader to see that Hamlet cannot speak to anyone about how he feels. As an effect to his decision of not speaking out, this allowed for rage and discomfort to grow inside him which will be one of the main reasons as to why he is legitimately going insane. With these various stressors in his life, it gives more evidence and reasoning to why he often experienced constant signs of depression and suicidal thoughts. The signs of distress he showed throughout the play are highlighted tremendously since he experienced major signs of depression.

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An overwhelming amount of evidence shows that Hamlet faked his insanity to confuse the king and his accomplices. Often revered for their emotional complexities, William Shakespeare’s tragic characters display various signs of mental illness. Sylvia Morris notes “Hamlet contains Shakespeare’s most fully-developed study of mental illness, and has always intrigued commentators on the play.” (“Shakespeare’s Minds Diseased: Mental Illness and its Treatment”). When looking at the play, one can infer that Shakespeare makes the relationship between sanity and insanity undistinguishable from one another.

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“Man pleaded innocent by reason of insanity for the murder of his mother”(Gross). Although the case of the man murdering his mother is not entirely similar to what Hamlet does they do share some similarities. In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet , Shakespeare uses the idea of a someone murdering one of their own family members in his play. In Hamlet the once ruler of Denmark ,king Hamlet, is long dead before the play begins with everyone thinking his cause of death was from the bite of a snake This is proven to be a lie however, when Ghost of king Hamlet visits his son Hamlet and reveals to him that his true killer is Hamlet’s uncle ,the new king of Denmark, Claudius. The play then follows Hamlet as he tries to take revenge for his father’s death.

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When it is said, “Would have mourn’d longer-- married with my uncle, My father’s brother” (I, i) it is shown that Hamlet’s mother, who was said to have been as grief-stricken as Niobe just three lines prior, marries her late husband’s brother. The second part of the line says, “But [my uncle] no more like my father/ Than I to Hercules” For Hamlet, a common man, to compare himself to Hercules, the most well-known and renowned hero in all of Greek mythology, it shows that they are complete opposites. The reference that Hamlet’s father, who could be compared to a titan as wonderful as Hyperion, was as different from his brother as Hamlet from Hercules, proves that Hamlet’s uncle was not by any means a good soul. To conclude, Shakespeare uses allusions to Greek mythology to help develop characters in his soliloquy Hamlet.

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In Hamlet, Shakespeare uses many references to sanity and insanity. Throughout the play, Hamlet goes back and forth between sanity and insanity, whether pretending to be insane just to mess with those he does not like or to save himself from getting in trouble. Hamlet is actually one of the smartest characters in the play, which is why he can pull off acting crazy so well. Shakespeare uses this idea of sanity and insanity to help the plot change and take a different directions. One of the most discussed topics of the Hamlet is whether Hamlet is insane or if he was just pretending the whole time.

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There are plenty of examples of Hamlet appearing mad, but there are just as many examples of Hamlet appearing sane, even intelligent. Hamlet is even aware of his madness, which can be seen in the quote, “What I have done that might your nature, honor, and exception roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness… It ‘t be so, Hamlet is of the faction that is wronged; His madness is poor Hamlet’s enemy” (273). Hamlet is clearly aware of his own madness, but this does not necessarily invoke his sanity. Hamlet still appears insane,

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Hamlet is sane because he only acts mad in front of certain people, he told his friends of his plan of revenge, and the fact that many people continuously doubted his insanity. Hamlet only acted insane in front of the king and his chairmen. In other times, he acted completely normal. This is because to get revenge for the death of his father, he needs to buy time distracting King Claudius so that he can kill him. He admits to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that he is “but mad north-north-west.

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Insanity is an idea that has been examined for a long time in numerous mediums such as films, music, plays, and even works of literature. William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” is no exception to that rule. Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most complex characters, and many scholars have been debating for centuries whether or not Hamlet is truly insane, or whether there is a particular reason for his odd behavior. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Hamlet merely pretends to be mad but in reality is sane.

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Throughout the play, Hamlet claims to be feigning madness, but his portrayal of a madman is so intense and so convincing that many readers believe that Hamlet actually slips into insanity at certain moments in the play. Do you think this is true, or is Hamlet merely playacting insanity? What evidence can you cite for either claim? In William Shakespeare’s classic, Hamlet, the question concerning Hamlet’s underlying sanity is a major element in the interpretation of the text.

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Throughout Hamlet, Prince Hamlet is faced against many situations that question his mental stability and ability to make decisions. His indecisiveness comes from the way he reacts to the situations he is put in and the way his mind presents these situations to him. The most important indecisive moments are Hamlet’s suicidal thoughts, his father’s ghost, and his vengeance to Claudius. When Hamlet is told by a ghost that has a resemblance of his father that Claudius had killed him, he vows to take vengeance and revenge his father’s death.

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“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” (I.v.90). Hamlet is about a young prince who is mourning the loss of his father. He then tries to seek revenge on his uncle Claudius because he poisoned his father. Throughout the play Hamlet’s behavior starts to change which causes him to become mad. The theory about all this is a Psychological Approach.

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Language is a complex system of communication that is developed to convey thoughts, feelings, and meaning. In William Shakespeare 's Hamlet, language is used as a device for manipulation shifting one’s perception of the truth as the play forms recurring motifs relating to the dichotomy of appearance versus reality. This is seen through the character Claudius, a politician that takes the throne by pouring poison into the King’s ear, then marries the Queen. During Act 1 his ability is shown through his speech filled with oxymorons such as “defeated joy” (I.II.10) to express grief over the King’s death, but then turns to talk about celebrating his marriage to Gertrude. Figuratively, he pours poison into others’ ears to reshape the appearance

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