Imagery – ‘the morn in russet mantle clad’

Hamlet abounds in imagery: vivid words and phrases that conjure up emotionally charged pictures or associations in the mind. When Hamlet thinks of how the First Player would perform if he had suffered such grief as Hamlet, he declares ‘He would drown the stage with tears’. The image passionately conveys the depth of Hamlet's feelings. Similarly, Polonius abruptly dismisses Hamlet's ‘holy vows’ of his love to Ophelia as ‘springes to catch woodcocks’: merely traps to snare innocent and foolish birds.

Imagery carries powerful significance, far deeper than its surface meanings. Images enrich particular moments, as when Claudius agonises that his hand is stained with his brother's blood: ‘Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens / To wash it white as snow?’ Imagery repeatedly illuminates the themes of the play such as revenge or madness (as when Gertrude describes Hamlet as ‘Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend / Which is the mightier.’).

Imagery gives pleasure as it stirs the audience's imagination and deepens the impact of particular moments or moods. It provides insight into character, and intensifies meaning and emotional force. In Hamlet the imagery is sometimes so brilliantly complex that, although it can be analysed and understood, it defies any final ‘explanation’, as in Hamlet's words:

All Shakespeare's imagery uses metaphor, simile or personification.

All are comparisons which in effect substitute one thing (the image) for another (the thing described).

A simile compares one thing to another using ‘like’ or ‘as’. Ophelia describes Hamlet's derangement as ‘Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh’. The Ghost tells how the poison spread through his body ‘swift as quicksilver’.

A metaphor is also a comparison, suggesting that two dissimilar things are actually the same or have something in common. The distraught Hamlet speaks of his head (or the world, see p. 253) as ‘this distracted globe’.