Soliloquies Essay - Claudius Soliloquy in Hamlet :: GCSE English Literature Coursework

Claudius Soliloquy in Hamlet Claudius soliloquy about his remorse over his murder of Hamlets sustain is important to the play because its the one place where we learn how Claudius feels about what he has done. The rest of the play is all about how Hamlet feels about what Claudius has done, and I guess it rounds out the play to get it from a different perspective. From the soliloquy I can see that Claudius feels sorry for the murder, but not sorry enough. He says, Oh, my horror is rank, it smells to heaven. He wants to pray for forgiveness of his offense, but laments, Pray can I not, because I am still possessed of those effects for which I did the murder - My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen. He murdered Hamlets father in order to get those things and he is not volitioning to give them up. He realizes that true repentance would be willing to give then up, and thitherfore, he is not really repentant. This is why at the end of his prayer, he says Words without thoughts neve r to heaven go. Theres no full point in saying he is sorry because God knows he doesnt really mean it. So, the best he can do is pray that God will make him sorry, by pleading, Heart with strings of steel, be as soft as the sinews of a new-born babe. All of this shows that Claudius is introspective and honest with himself. It also does contradictory things to my whimsey of him. Depending on how I look at it, this prayer can make me feel sympathetic towards Claudius as I learn about the inner aberration he is going through and how awful he feels about killing Hamlets father. On the other hand, it also makes me more angry with him because I realize he fully understood how terrible what he did was, but he chose to do it anyway, and now he knows he should repent, but refuses to. As terrible as his flagitious feelings are, they obviously arent bad enough to make him change. Claudius still holds out some hope for himself, though, saying All may be well. But he shows there really isn t much hope left, when, a few acts later, he plans Hamlets murder to preserve the same things he killed Hamlets father to get.