What is the significance of soliloquy in Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’?

Before figuring out why it is important you need to understand what soliloquy is and that’s actually pretty easy – the Latin etymology tells you most of it, the word comes from solus (“only, sole”) + loquor (“I speak”) and a soliloquy is a technique found in many dramas wherein a character speaks thoughts aloud to the audience, that are unknown to characters in the play itself. It is essentially a monologue that is spoken not to an in-world character but to oneself, to the audience. Shakespeare uses soliloquy a lot in Hamlet – so why is that? Simply, it’s so that as an audience we understand Hamlet as a character. He is closed off and does not discuss his plans with other characters so without his soliloquies we would not know his plans or his rationale. Following on from that, Shakespeare uses soliloquy to help us understand and relate to our protagonist, help us side with him and support his actions. Additionally, soliloquies are used by Shakespeare to highlight Hamlet’s isolation – he stands alone on stage, sharing his emotions with an unseen audience, to himself but never with others in the play; he is physically isolated as he stands alone which reiterates what Shakespeare wants us to understand about his character. A brief soliloquy related tip: in any essay, you’re likely able to talk about at least one soliloquy, you should talk about at least one soliloquy – Shakespeare used them extensively for a reason and we can delve more deeply into the specifics about each soliloquy in the future.