they truly are. At the time of Hamlets first soliloquy, the hard truths of his fathers death and his mothers remarriage are beginning to sink in. In his first soliloquy Hamlet expresses his sorrow for present evil, the loss of his father and remarriage of his mother, and the lack of virtue in those around him. He describes the world as an unweeded garden, from which the only good, his father, has departed. He attributes his melancholy [...] to circumstances. 35In this instance, Hamlet acknowledges the idea that something is out of order in his life, and he even goes as far as to indirectly place blame on his mother and uncle. Afterwards, in the second soliloquy Hamlet expresses the effects that his sorrow has on him by deprecating himself.36 Finally, in the third soliloquy, clarity is granted about Hamlets situation and feelings about it as [...] the third soliloquy, To be or not to be? [...] conforms very neatly to Shakespeares characterization of Hamlet as a melancholic.37 The basics of melancholy being fear and sorrow, in his Third Soliloquy, the single occasion which he refers [directly] to his melancholy, he couples it with weakness: Out of my weakness and my melancholy [...](II. ii. 630). 38 Hamlets soliloquies serve as stepping stones that serve to move along the plot in Hamlet while as the same time covering the basic guideposts of melancholy in the duration. In the first soliloquy Hamlet reflects on the first root of melancholy, sorrow; in the third he reflects on the second traditional root of melancholy; fear.39 All throughout his realization process, Hamlet is faced with the idea of the time that [...] melancholy [...] was technically a morbid condition of the bible.40 As a result of the assumption that it was wrong of him to feel that way, not only does Hamlet pointedly ignore his advances but the melancholy, which he first ascribes to unprevailing woe, deepens as time goes on until it develops into a complete transformati...
