Beginning of Essay
A Soliloquy is a dramatic convention, in which the character stands alone on stage, speaking. Originally it was a plot device, to enable a character to tell the audience what he planned to do next, for example, in the course of revenge. But the device is heightene ....

Middle of Essay
.... tendencies, which crop up again in the third soliloquy; ‘When he himself his quietus make With a bare bodkin’ Clearly, Hamlet is unhappy, but it may be because he has too little to do (He is briefly happy when things take his mind off his problems - e.g. when the players arrive - but even this, on reflection, leads to more soul searching in a soliloquy). Other aspects of Hamlet’s character for the most part get swallowed up by this consuming depression, but certainly he is oppressed by the hypocrisy of his uncle. ‘O villain, villain, smiling damned villain!’ and ‘That one may smile, and smile, and be ....