Within the play Hamlet there exists many puns and phrases, which have a double meaning. Little ploys on words which tend to add a bit of entertainment to the dialogue of the play. These forked tongue phrases are used by Shakespeare to cast an insight to the characters in the play…to give them more depth and substance. However, most importantly these phrases cause the reader or audience to think. They are able to show a double meaning that not all people would pick up on, which is the purpose of the comments.The Shakespearean theater is a physical manifestation of how Shakespeare catered to more than one social class in his theatrical productions. These Shakespearean theaters have a unique construction, which had specific seats for the wealthy, and likewise, a designated separate standing section for the peasants. This definite separation of the classes is also evident in Shakespeare’s writing, in as such that the nobility of the productions speak in poetic iambic pentameter, where as the peasants speak in ordinary prose. Perhaps Shakespeare incorporated these double meanings to the lines of his characters with the intent that only a select amount of his audience were meant to hear it in either its double meaning, or its true meaning.However, even when the tragic hero Hamlet's wordplay is intentional,it is not always clear as to what purpose he uses it. To confuse or to clarify? Or to control his own uncensored thoughts? The energy and turmoil of his mind brings words thronging into speech, stretching, over-turning and contorting their implications. Sometimes Hamlet has to struggle to use the simplest words repeatedly, as he tries to force meaning to flow in a single channel. To Ophelia, after he has encountered her in her loneliness, "reading on a book," he repeats five times "Get thee to a nunnery," varying the phrase very little, simply reiterating what was already said by changing "get" to "go." This well known quote, t...
