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  • Essay / Ambiguity in Shakespeare's Hamlet - 1001

    At the heart of Shakespeare's Hamlet is the timeless and dynamic exploration of human nature and experience, complemented by masterful manipulations of dramatic and literary elements that integrate into the play an ambiguity in meaning and purpose. As a response, the final scenes of Hamlet have significantly affected my judgment of the play, as Shakespeare's masterful ability to control the use and flow of language serves to rectify through these scenes the universal confrontation of thematic concerns such as morality, mortality and uncertainty. . The combination of characterization, symbolism, and Hamlet's struggles as an existentialist hero acts as a vessel for Shakespeare's insightful perception of the intricacies of the human condition, triggering the fulcrum of the iambic pentametric verse is the accent of syllables. Thus, in lines where syllables are not stressed, meanings and certainty are weakened and ambiguity, among other notions, is created by contrast, as can be seen in Hamlet's most famous soliloquy. A careful examination of the line “to be or not to be, that is the question” reveals an unstressed eleventh syllable; a feminine ending. This technique illustrates the uncertainty of Hamlet's words, and as the soliloquy continues we see the repetition of the feminine ending: "if it is noble in the mind to suffer/the slings and arrows of a scandalous fortune…” Such repetition combined with the rhetorical question that Hamlet is pondering illuminates the central theme of indecision which can further be seen in the final scenes. As Hamlet rhetorically reasons: “Has not he who killed my king and prostituted my mother/…have a perfect conscience to leave him…?” the feminine ending of the first line again emphasizes the theme of uncertainty as Hamlet questions the morality of avenging one's father out of loyalty. It is through this internal affliction, aimed at imposing the theme of uncertainty, that Hamlet maintains his textual integrity, for Renaissance man valued filial loyalty and Hamlet often speaks in prose when addressing to Polonius: - "Slanders sir, for the satirical thug says here that old men have gray bears, that their faces are wrinkled...", as well as R&G: - "So you live around his waist, or in the middle of his savors ? ". By Act 2, it has been established that iambic pentametric verse is primarily used by royalty and to remain respectable. As a result, the depreciation of the prose suggests that Hamlet is disrespecting the characters, while Polonius and R&G speak in prose and prove themselves to be less moral characters through their actions. Additionally, as Hamlet speaks in prose to R&G, his use of language gradually evolves into prose poetry, asserting his moral authority and intellectualism over R&G, engaging in the use of metaphors, accumulation and juxtaposition when he declares: “What a work of man! How noble reason is, how infinite the faculties are, how expressive and admirable the form and movement are, like an angel in action, like a god in apprehension!... Man does not please me. Moreover, in act 5, Hamlet speaks in prose while he converses in the cemetery with the gravedigger clowns and Horatio. It is interesting that in prose Hamlet often speaks his most truthful words. In his aforementioned monologue, he speaks of man's great abilities, but condemns man for his great atrocities.,