An incontestable fact about the story of Hamlet is that nobody remains indifferent about it. Everyone who once read it has his opinion about it. People discuss it, debate about it, develop new approaches, and still there is no single interpretation of this story. One of the means which helps the reader to understand Hamlet, his deeds, other characters in the story is comparison of all these to the Nature or things that happen in nature and Hamlet himself prompts this way of better understanding of the world. Hamlet is not an ordinary person.
He is thinking, reflecting, feeling but he is lonely among so many people sorrounding him. Hamlet cannot find understanding in this world but he still presses towards this understanding. He perceives the world, people around him (good or bad) through the prism of his way of understanding. Hamlet bespeaks the nature and it helps him to explain and to comprehend events. Hamlet uses the comparison to the natural phenomena describing his mood as the King comments on the expression of his (Hamlet’s) face: KING CLAUDIUS How is it that the clouds still hang on you? HAMLET
Not so, my lord; I am too much i’ the sun. (68 – 69) Although we do understand that “clouds still hang on him” indeed and that he is simply jeering at his uncle. Hamlet realizies that the one who is guilty in all that happened is the King. Hamlet suffers and his sorrow is honest, it is not a play. He says to his mother: Nor windy suspiration of forced breath No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, Nor the dejected ‘havior of the visage, Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, That can denote me truly: these indeed seem, For they are actions that a man might play.. (81 – 86)
We see that Hamlet associates emotions with natural phenomena again and this is the way how he understands these displays of emotions: wind, river. This is how he perceives expressions on the face. Hamlet doesn’t leave his main offender without attention either. He describes the King quite not with pleasant and nice words and his perception of the King is truly negative. Hamlet finds certain definitions for the King which describe all the negativity of the King’s character, the whole hate and hostility of Hamlet towards the King the best way just as Hamlet understands that:
O, that this too too solid flesh would melt Thaw and resolve itself into a dew! (131 – 132) Hamlet thinks that one of the worst punishments for such a man would be to become a dew and thus disappear in the morning like it never existed just like it happens in real life with the dew. And then Hamlet goes on with accusation and calls the King with further names. And again he Fie on’t! ah fie! ’tis an unweeded garden, That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature Possess it merely. That it should come to this! (137 – 139) This is how Hamlet calls his enemy.
The King is nothing for Hamlet but just a putrid garden. Then the words about the desperate love of his father towards the Quessn follow: Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother That he might not beteem the winds of heaven Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth! (142 – 144) The power of this passionate love of his father protected the Queen, his mother, from anything. It was really strong and never let any sorrow, even may be any other emotion touch her face. The language Hamlet speaks in the dialogues, his monologues is very expressive.
He himself is a very passionate man who cannot be indifferent to any event taking place in the family which caused a tragedy, injustice, death. He let everything through himself, and then his perception of the events, people is expressed with elocution. His comparissons to the nature evoke certain emotions in reader. This way of describing things helps not only Hamlet himself to understand things better, but also the reader. Through these associations we can imagine the attitude of Hamlet towards these events and the people around him better.