Simile
A simile compares two different terms using like or as: Sam is as hungry as a
bear, or Angel runs like the wind. When Polonius gives advice to Laertes, he
uses the following Simile:
This above all, to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
The preceding simile points out the logical consequence of being true to
oneself as being true to others. The simile points out the logical consequence
of Polonius’ conclusion by comparing it to the natural sequence of day and
night.
Directions: The following passages contain examples of simile. Identify the
comparisons and what is the implication and significance of the simile in
terms of the character or situation. For example, the logical consequence of
Polonius’ simile.
1. Horatio referring to the ghost’s sudden disappearance (Act 1, Scene I):
And then it stated like a guilty thing / Upon a fearful summons.
2. Find two other similes of your own from scene packs or in the play to
explain.
Metaphor
A metaphor compares two different terms. Unlike simile, a metaphor makes a
comparison directly without using like or as: Sam is a real bear when he is
hungry, or Angel breezed across the finish line. Hamlet uses a metaphor as he
promises the ghost of his father to seek revenge upon Claudius:
And thy commandment all alone shall live / within the book and volume
of my brain.
The metaphor here compares Hamlet’s memory of his vow to the ghost to a
clearly defined section (book) within a bound volume.
Directions: The following passages contain examples of metaphor. Identify
the comparisons and what is the implication and significance of the simile in
terms of the character or situation. For example, the resolute nature of
Hamlet’s vow belonging to a resolute portion of his brain (bound and secure)
1. Claudius referring to King Hamlet’s death (Act I, Scene ii)
Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death / the memory be green
2. Claudius addressing Hamlet’s melancholy (Act I, Scene ii)
How is that the clouds still hang on you?
3. How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me the uses of the world!
Fie on’t, ah fie, ‘tis and unweeded garden
That grows to seed, things rank and gross in nature
Posses it merely.
Personification
We use personification to give human characteristics to inatimate or non
human things. We may say that “love is blind,” or argue with the soft drink
machine that “eats” our change. In the play, Hamlet addresses his schoolmates
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern using personification of fortune as a woman:
We have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of Fortune,
That she sends you to prison hither?
.
Directions: The following passages contain examples of personification. For
each example explain the significance or purpose of the figurative language in
relation to the character, situation, or narrative as a whole
1. Horatio referring to the coming dawn (Act 1, Scene I):
But look the morn is russet mantle clad / walks o’er the dew of yon high
eastward hill.
2. Polonius giving Laertes advice (Act I Scene iii)
Give thy thoughts no tongue / nor any unproportioned thought his act
3. Claudius responding to Hamlet’s decision to remain at court (Act I,
Scene i)
This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet / sits smiling to my heart
Apostrophe
Another figurative device is to address a person or abstract idea directly
although it is not or cannot be present. For example:
Death, be not proud
OR
Twinkle, twinkle little star,
How I wonder what you are?
.
Directions: The following passages contain examples of Apostrophe. For each
example explain the significance or purpose of the figurative language in
relation to the character, situation, or narrative as a whole
1. At the end of Hamlet, Fortinbras surveys the devastation, addressing
death directly as though it were human:
Oh proud Death,
What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,
That thou so many princes at a shot
So bloodily hast struck?
2. Hamlet reflecting upon his mother’s remarriage (Act I Scene ii)
It is not, nor cannot come to good, / but break, my heart, for I must hold
my tongue.
3. Find one other Apostrophe and explain its use