The skull is the most famous symbol in the play, and it represents the mortality of mankind. When Hamlet realizes that the skull in the churchyard is his old jester Yorick he picks it up and contemplates it. Alas, poor Yorick.
As the 'play within the play' is a physical representation of the original murder, the symbolism is direct and straightforward: the 'king' in the play represents the old King Hamlet, the 'queen' represents Queen Gertrude, and the 'poisoner' represents King Claudius.
Hamlet speaks the famous soliloquy ('To be or not to be') and rejects Ophelia, whom he had previously professed love to, believing that she is in league with his uncle and Polonius.
Ophelia uses flowers as symbols of her deep sorrow and grief. She is very upset because her father, Polonius, has just been killed by Hamlet. Being a sensitive and intelligent young woman, Ophelia needs to express herself, and she does so by passing out flowers to the court in her seeming mad state of mind.
There are several symbols in Hamlet and metaphors that are worth mentioning when studying this play. The most important are: unweeded gardens, Ophelia's flowers, Yorick's skull, the ghost, and nature imagery.
Daisy: Ophelia picks up and sets down the daisy without giving it to anyone. This is interesting because the daisy is the symbol of innocence and gentleness. Evidently Ophelia thought there was no place for innocence in the Danish court anymore.
Ophelia's drowning is the consummate representation of an eternal retreat into the feminine, trading an individual voice for eternal silence in union with feminine essence. In turn, her death expresses the danger of reducing an individual to his or her gender and disregarding the voice of the marginalized.
For Hamlet, Yorick's skull symbolizes the inevitable decay of the human body. Speaking to and about Yorick's skull, Hamlet notes that Yorick's lips no longer exist, which leads him to note that Yorick's jokes, pranks, and songs are gone, too.
What do pansies represent in Hamlet? Pansies traditionally represent thoughts. Shakespeare confirms this symbolic meaning by having Ophelia say, "there is pansies, that's for thoughts" when handing the flowers out.
Death permeates "Hamlet" right from the opening scene of the play, where the ghost of Hamlet's father introduces the idea of death and its consequences. The ghost represents a disruption to the accepted social order – a theme also reflected in the volatile socio-political state of Denmark and Hamlet's own indecision.
“To thine own self be true.”
'To be, or not to be: that is the question'.
Arguably the most famous quotation in the whole of Hamlet, this line begins one of Hamlet's darkest and most philosophical soliloquies.
Hamlet, written by William Shakespeare around 1600, is a tragedy that explores themes of friendship, madness, and revenge.
The most obvious example of revenge symbolism in the play is the Ghost of Hamlet's Father, which represents the way Hamlet is haunted by his father's memory. The Ghost of Hamlet's Father “appears to demand vengeance, and to reveal secret crimes.
The first and central occurrence of corruption in Hamlet is the murder of King Hamlet by Claudius and his subsequent usurpation of the Danish. He also marries Gertude, King Hamlet's former wife. From an Elizabethan perspective, such a marriage would have been considered adultery and incest.
The gravediggers represent a humorous type commonly found in Shakespeare's plays: the clever commoner who gets the better of his social superior through wit.
A skull and crossbones is a symbol consisting of a human skull and two long bones crossed together under or behind the skull. The design originated in the Late Middle Ages as a symbol of death and especially as a memento mori on tombstones.
The flowers and herbs that Ophelia chose are rosemary, pansy, fennel and columbine. She also gave out rue, daisy and violet. There are seven Ophelia flowers and herbs in total.
Background: Ophelia's syndrome is the association of Hodgkin's Lymphoma and memory loss, coined by Dr. Carr in 1982, while it's most remembered for the eponym in reminiscence of Shakespeare's character, Dr.
By this point, Ophelia would be well aware of her pregnancy, and well aware that she would soon begin to show outward signs of it.
For the Elizabethans, Hamlet was the prototype of melancholy male madness, associated with intellectual and imaginative genius; but Ophelia's affliction was erotomania, or love-madness.
Although Ophelia states that rosemary is for remembrance, it is also a symbol of death and mourning, and so foreshadows her impending death. The flowers, herbs and plants that Ophelia mentions and gives to the other characters are similarly full of symbolic meaning.
Use of these flowers also implies that she was resentful of Hamlet for devaluing their relationship, and even perhaps her own regret for not treasuring her life as it was. Nettles, commonly known as weedy Urtica dioica, signify pain and cruelty.
The violet can signify "Modesty" and "Humility" and is often looked upon as a sign of innocence. Bunches of violets were hence used as gifts for newlyweds. Violets are symbolic of faith, mystical awareness, inspiration, spiritual passion, profuseness and sovereignty.