How is figurative language present in Hamlet? Use quotes to explain.

Figurative language is descriptive by nature, yet it should not be taken literally.

In Shakespeare's Hamlet, figurative language allows the audience and reader to more deeply experience what occurs in the story.

In Act One, scene i, Horatio faces a ghost and states the following:

What art thou that usurp'st this time of night (57).

Shakespeare uses the word "usurp," which is defined as the following:

to commit forcible or illegal seizure of an office, power, and so on; to encroach.

This is a robust word as compared to the more casual employment of "disturb." "Usurp" is generally used to describe an intense forcefulness, as one who usurps the authority of a king or world leader, especially through violent means such as assassination or revolution. The author's decision to use this impactful word conveys to the audience that the appearance of a ghost is of enormous consequence, especially for Elizabethan society that would have not only believed in the appearance of the supernatural, but would also most likely be excited and horrified by its presence.

This manifestation would reflect society's belief in the Great Chain of Being (sometimes referred to as the "scale of nature"), which assigned every person, animal, plant, precious metal, gem, and so on a position on a hierarchal ladder. For instance, God was at the top of the order, followed by angels, humans, and then animals, all the way to minerals at the bottom. The Renaissance society was certain that all things should take place in a normal manner unless something disastrous had occurred—some kind of a disruption in the chain. This is a common theme in Shakespeare's works and deeply familiar to his audiences. Unnatural things would take place in light of such an event. In this case, it would be the cause for a spirit to walk the night.

This disruption to what God had ordained (such as with what we learn later is the murder of Old Hamlet, God's ordained King of Denmark) would signal to the audience that evil was afoot; what God ordained, they believed, could not be thwarted by man without dire consequences—in this case, the appearance of "the majesty of buried Denmark" (59), or more precisely, the deceased Old Hamlet, the recently expired king. And so, the use of "usurp" does not infer the commonness of comparatively lackluster words such as "disturb" or "upset," but more likely d an intense upheaval—hence his use of "usurp."

More examples of figurative language occur in Act Four, scene seven, as Gertrude describes Ophelia's death to the young woman's brother Laertes. Shakespeare's use of figurative language more powerfully conveys the utter devastation and loss the Queen feels for the gentle Ophelia—a "sweet, docile girl . . . so easily dominated":

There on the pendant boughs her crownet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke,
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up (187-191).

As Ophelia tries (in her madness) to hang wreaths of weeds (rather than flowers) on a tree trunk stretching over the water, Shakespeare speaks in line 188 of the broken limb ("envious sliver broke"), and in line 190 of the "weeping brook." Neither of these things (the "sliver" nor the brook) experience emotions (jealousy or sadness). Again in line 191, the mythical image of the mermaid is used, describing how Ophelia's clothes not only spread out, but also appeared momentarily like the tail of a mysterious and magical sea creature that (like Ophelia in that moment) would appear so much in her element in the water, even to lifting her up. The author uses these descriptions to more intensely express the tragedy, and surprisingly also the beauty, of the scene that Gertrude is describing. The language not only conveys a more realistic picture for those listening in the play (and, of course, the audience), but they also communicate the depth of loss of this lovely, gentle, and emotionally abused character. (The audience will remember her love for Hamlet and her confusion over his altered state of affection for her, her brother's hypocritical stance toward her relationship with Hamlet, and the way Claudius and even her father Polonius use her to advance their personal and political ends. It is perhaps only Gertrude who can honestly mourn Ophelia without a sense of guilt, as she seems the only character that has not used or abused Ophelia in some way.) In light of Ophelia's cruel treatment at the hands of many of the play's other characters, the figurative descriptions in the passage above act as a —a way to transform these awful betrayals of the young woman into a beautiful eulogy for the ill-used Ophelia.

Figurative language not only imbues Shakespeare's writing with added dimension, but it also draws emotional responses and a creates movingly dramatic experiences created by the syntax—the carefully chosen wording—that makes the Bard's writing so emotionally rousing even so many years after his death.