hamlet

In this play Shakespeare utilizes monologues, a long piece of dialogue spoken by a single character with others present on stage, to help add depth to the story and the characters that are in “Hamlet”. Shakespeare uses a monologue in Act 1, Scene 2, lines 1-38, this passage is the speech King Claudius is giving to the court about the recent events that have occurred in the kingdom recently. This monologue allows the reader to get a deeper sense of King Claudius’s character and style of rule, and also raises more suspicion that King Claudius murdered his brother, Old King Hamlet, Hamlet’s father. The speech given by the Claudius, the new king of Denmark, allows the reader to get a deeper sense of how the new king rules and how he displays his power. In this speech, it’s almost comparable to the State of the Union address in the United States because Claudius is laying out the current situation the nation is in, and reveals his plan on how he intends to work on the situation. In this dialogue, Claudius seems to be a ruler who knows, that he has all the power but isn’t overly flagrant about it. He is demanding the respect of his people, but can embrace as one as well as stand out in power. He ties himself to the people of Denmark in this speech by the use of the royal “we” which represents everyone in the kingdom. When Claudius first speaks he says “Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death/ the memory be green, and that it us befitted” (lines 1-2). This an example of the royal we, because he is referring to the old king as “our dear brother” to say that the old king was a relative to everyone in the kingdom, which is not true, but the use of that is important because it allows the new king to be able to display ideas on a wide scale system by communicating to the whole kingdom at once. He also establishes a demand for respect and sets a standard for his rule by using, formal language throughout the speech. He uses words like, “discretion” (line 5),