Hamlet: Meaning Within Meaning :: GCSE Coursework Shakespeare Hamlet

Hamlet:   Meaning Within Meaning  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚        Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Within the play Hamlet there exist many puns and phrases, which have a double meaning. Little plays on words which tend to add a bit of entertainment to the dialogue of the play. These forked tongue phrases are used by Shakespeare to cast an insight to the characters in the play to give them more depth and substance. However, most importantly, these phrases cause the reader or audience to think. They are able to show a double meaning that not all people would pick up on, which is the purpose of the comments. Little is known about Shakespeare's life, other than he was a great playwright whose works serve to meld literary casts for ages to come. This was his occupation, he wrote and directed plays to be performed. This was his sole form of income that we know of, it was his way of putting the bread on the table. If people did not like what Shakespeare wrote, then he would not earn any money. If the people didn't like what they saw, he became the starving artist. Shakespeare wrote these dialogues in such a manner as to entertain the Nobility, as well as the peasants. The Shakespearean theater is a physical manifestation of how Shakespeare catered to more than one social class in his theatrical productions. These Shakespearean theaters have a unique construction, which had specific seats for the wealthy, and likewise, a designated separate standing section for the peasants. This definite separation of the classes is also evident in Shakespeare's writing, in as much as the nobility of the productions speak in poetic iambic pentameter, whereas the peasants speak in ordinary prose. Perhaps Shakespeare incorporated these double meanings into the lines of his characters with the intention that only a select number of his audience were meant to hear it in either its double meaning, or its true meaning. However, even when the tragic hero, Hamlet's, wordplay is intentional, it is not always clear why he uses it. To confuse or to clarify? Or to control his own uncensored thoughts? The energy and turmoil of his mind brings words thronging into speech, stret ching, over-turning and contorting their implications. Sometimes Hamlet has to struggle to use the simplest words repeatedly, as he tries to force meaning to flow in a single channel. To Ophelia, after he has encountered her in her loneliness, "reading on a book," he repeats five times, "Get thee to a nunnery;" varying the phrase very little, simply reiterating what was already said by changing "get" to "go.