A soliloquy's purpose is to outline the feelings and thoughts of a certain character at a point in the play. It reveals the innermost beliefs of the character and offers an unbiased perspective as it is merely the character talking to the audience, although not directly, and not to any other characters who may cause the character to withhold their true opinions. Therefore, Hamlet's first soliloquy (act 1, scene 2) is essential to the play as it highlights his inner conflict caused by the events of the play. It reveals his true feelings and as such emphasizes the difference between his public appearance and his feelings within himself. An example of Hamlet's public appearance would be his less confrontational attitude towards Claudius in the previous scene. And an example of his true feelings would be here in the addressed soliloquy where he directly insults Claudius as a "satyr" (act 1, scene 2). In the scene Shakespeare communicates the turmoil of Hamlet's psyche through imagery and language.Hamlet's despair stems from his mother's marriage to his uncle and it is this that is the driving force behind what is communicated. His constant repetition of the time in which it took the two to get married, "But two months dead . . . yet within a month . . . A little month . . . Within a month . . . most wicked speed", suggests his disgust at the situation and that it is not necessarily the nature of their "incestuous" relationship that troubles Hamlet; more the short time in which it occurred. In fact, this is especially well communicated to the audience as, throughout the soliloquy, the passage of time that Hamlet describes gets less from "two months" to "Within a month". This has the effect of outlining Hamlet's supposed contempt of his mother for only mourning a month whilst also highlighting that it is the time involved that is annoying him and not specifically the deed. In this soliloquy, we also learn about Hamlet's adoration ...
