Hamlet Act 1 Scene 4 Discussion

             Today I am going to analyze act 1 scene four of William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. In the scene the king decides to throw a celebration, due to the fact that Hamlet is not going away for his studies. Hamlet describes to Horatio that the celebration makes a fool of the Danish people. Specifically in lines nineteen and twenty-one, Hamlet really insults his uncle's actions. I will paraphrase the lines Hamlet said. " This idiotic celebration, makes the Danes look foolish to other nations. They will think that the Danes are drunks and idiotic, the custom ruins the Dane's achievements, although many achievements were great." The key words here are "taxed" and " soil". The word "taxed" denotes " to lay a burden on; make serious demands on. In these lines, the word could refer to the disruption of the Dane's reputation, because of the king's disgraceful celebration and how that will result in other countries looking down on the country. The king lays a burden on his country; the word taxed is used to show that the king burden's his people through the celebration. Another definition of the word taxed is to make serious demands on; the word can show that the king's celebration makes a serious demand on his people, because in return for the celebration, the Dane's foreign reputation will be soiled. The word "soiled" can be either a noun or a verb. As a noun soil can be a country, land, or region but as a verb soil can mean to sully or tarnish, as with disgrace. Hamlet said the word soiled to represent both the fact that the king's celebration represented the country, land, and people of the country. Furthermore, the verb soil means to tarnish or sully, and Hamlet could have said soiled to show how the king's celebration tarnish's the Dane's reputation with foreign lands. Shakespeare put the words taxed and soiled for their double meanings in the scene to further portray Hamlet's disdain for Claudius's celebration. These lines are important because they clearly establish the state of anguish Hamlet feels about the king's celebration. These lines connect to act two when Hamlet says to his uncle, "  A little more than kin, and less than kind"(1.2. 65). In the lines in scene two, Hamlet was showing that he does not view his uncle highly and does not want to be very closely associated with him; this connects to the lines in scene four, because in both acts Hamlets detests his uncles actions, and scene two shows his lack of love for his uncle. He finds the party a disgrace to the Danes, and thinks that Danish achievements are becoming undermined, due to the disgracefulness of the king's celebration. With these lines, Shakespeare helps establish the fact that Hamlet dislikes almost everything that his uncle does. Hamlet spends much of the act complaining about a celebratory, which further demonstrates how much disdain he feels for his uncle, the king of the Danes.