Hamlet's Second Soliloquy Analysis

Hamlet’s second soliloquy occurs right after the ghost of the dead King, Hamlet’s father, leaves, having charged Hamlet with the duty of taking revenge upon his murderer. The ghost of the dead king tells Hamlet that as he slept in his garden, a villain poured poison into his ear. The ghost reveals the fact that King Claudius is the real murderer of Hamlet's dead father. Hamlet is stunned by the revelation and echoes of the Ghost’s words asking him to remember it. This soliloquy reveals an important secret to Hamlet and carries his rage and grief. He is shocked, stunned, and in great grief upon realizing that his father was murdered by his uncle. In Hamlet’s second soliloquy, Shakespeare uses metaphors, allusions, and anaphora to express Hamlet’s …show more content…
He is of course furious with his uncle for killing his father, but he is just as furious with his mother for marrying her husband’s murderer so quickly. He shouts, “O most pernicious woman! O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!” (1.5.113). The smiling villain could refer to his uncle who is a murderer with a facade of a gentleman, or it could refer to his mother who might have known more about the situation than she is letting on and could have even had a role to play in her husband’s death for all Hamlet knows at this point in time. The repetition with the word “villain” adds emphasis and shows the reader just how angry Hamlet is. He goes on to use a metaphor to compare his mind to a book: “And thy commandment all alone shall live within the book and volume of my brain” (1.5.109-110). He means the only content of his mind will consist of his duty to exact revenge on his father's murderer, as his father's ghost commanded. Hamlet feels that in order to fulfill the wishes of his father’s ghost he must sacrifice everything else because killing Claudius must allows come first. Hamlet then becomes enraged at his uncle and his