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In Hamlet's first Soliloquy how does Shakespeare use imagery

            In Hamlet's first Soliloquy how does Shakespeare use imagery, language and sentence structure to portray Hamlet's state of mind?.
             In Hamlet's first soliloquy it is painfully obvious that he is suffering great mental anguish. In all parts of his speech, excepting his descriptions of his parents" relationship, Hamlet is disturbingly pessimistic. He even opens with notions of suicide saying "that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon "gainst self-slaughter!" He continues to describe why he feels this way using a list of unfavourable adjectives. Hamlet is clearly suffering from what would be diagnosed as depression with his main symptom the inability to see any good in any worldly activities, preferring to describe them as "weary, stale, flat and unprofitable.".
             Hamlet uses the image of an "unweeded garden" to describe his perceptions of contemporary Denmark. This shows how bleak everything seems to him and how he feels it is evil that is currently triumphing over goodness and justice. This also gives insight into his hatred of Claudius which spurs his disgust at his mother's remarriage. Hamlet describes the garden (Denmark) as overgrown with things "rank and gross in nature" which can be understood to include Claudius taking over as monarch and thus bringing evil to power. Such a description of Claudius helps confirm Hamlet's angry state of mind and brings the inclusion of hatred to the myriad of emotions he is feeling.
             Hamlet's hatred and disgust are further explained by his description of his parents" idyllic marriage and the references to the brevity of the period between Hamlet's father's death and his mother's remarriage. In the line, "But two months dead-nay, not so much, not two" a spectator would receive a sense of Hamlet's despair and disbelief. The way the line is broken up by punctuation and the repetition of "not", creating a slight "n" alliteration give a feeling of desperation to Hamlet's words.


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