Thursday, August 2, 2012

What language devices does Shakespeare use in act 3, scene 4, lines 17 to 53, to create dramatic effect in Hamlet?

In Hamlet 3.4.17–53, Hamlet confronts his mother, Gertrude, for betraying his father and marrying Claudius, while she is alone in her room. In the middle of this confrontation, Hamlet hears a noise and stabs someone who is moving behind the curtain. He assumes that the person who is spying on their conversation is Claudius, but he soon discovers that he has accidentally stabbed Polonius instead. Tension is high throughout this scene.
As Hamlet begins to confront his mother, he tells her, "you shall not budge. / You go not till I set you up a glass / Where you may see the inmost part of you" (3.4.23–25). Hamlet uses a metaphor here to convey that he intends to show his mother the nature of her true character.The passage is also rife with alliteration to draw attention to important details. In line 20, when Hamlet stabs Polonius, Hamlet cries, "Dead for a ducat, dead!" (3.4.29), and in lines 36 and 37, both Hamlet and Gertrude repeat the line "kill a king" (3.4.36–37).Lines 34 and 35 also are written as a heroic couplet. Hamlet remarks "A bloody deed—almost as bad, good mother, / As kill a king and marry with his brother" (3.4.34–35). This change to a rhyming couplet here when before the text was unrhymed emphasizes these lines and Hamlet's meaning.The last few lines of this passage are also full of metaphor, simile, and personification as Hamlet throws accusations at his mother.


Such an act That blurs the grace and blush of modesty, Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose From the fair forehead of an innocent love And sets a blister there, makes marriage vows As false as dicers’ oaths (3.4.49–54)

Hamlet tells his mother that she makes modesty "blush" and that she "takes off the rose" from the image of innocent love and replaces it with a "blister." He essentially tells her that she has made the name of innocent love shamed and dirtied and that she treats marriage promises like gamblers' bets.

All of these language devices create and build dramatic effect throughout the scene.
https://www.folgerdigitaltexts.org/html/Ham.html

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