Foil | minor character whose attitudes, beliefs, and behavior differ significantly from those of the main character (highlights flaws) |
Horatio | a foil to Hamlet |
dramatic irony | occurs when the results of actions are tragic reverse of what participants think; spectators understand |
dramatic irony | when hamlet and horatio know that claudius has killed the king |
comic relief | humorous episode in a tragedy |
comic relief | the graveyard scene in act five |
aside | speech wherein character speaks his thoughts in words to the spectator but supposedly not to the other actors |
aside | “a little more than kin and less than kind” |
oxymoron | “with mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage” |
imagery | use of vivid, concrete, sensory details |
metaphor | when hamlet calls the world and “unweeded garden” |
simile | “what a piece of work is man!…how like an angel” |
hyperbole | “he would drown the stage with tears/ And cleave the general ear with horrid speech” |
personification | “For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak/ With most miraculous organ” |
apostrophe | when a character addresses an abstract concept, absent person, or inanimate object |
apostrophe | “Frailty thy name is woman!” |
alliteration | “in equal scarle weighing delight and dole.” |
pun | “not so my lord. I am too much in the sun.” |
allusion | “she followed my poor father’s body/ Like Niobe, all tears…” |
Hamlet vs. Gertrude | resolution: she dies after siding with Hamlet |
Hamlet vs. Claudius | resolution: Hamlet finally kills his uncle, seeking revenge, and Claudius gets what he deserves |
Denmark vs. Norway | resolution: Fortinbras will easily take over Denmark now that the royal family is dead |
Ophelia vs. Polonius | both of them die; losing her father shows her weakness |
Reason why there are no soliloquys in act 5 | Hamlet was acting on instinct and his indecisiveness ends |
literary devices and hamlet
July 13, 2019