This paper discusses the use of metaphors used in Shakespeare's Hamlet. The use of metaphor, however, is a bit trickier and leaves much more room for individual interpretation. Literary scholars spend careers searching for hidden metaphors, and when they find them they spend even more time hypothesizing about what they mean. For metaphors, by their very nature, lack a clearly identifiable origin. The works of William Shakespeare are some of the most thoroughly analyzed works of literature that the world has ever known. Countless volumes have been written in attempts to decipher the meaning behind his plays and their characters, and perhaps no character has provided greater fodder for debate than Hamlet. In the following pages I will cite some examples of Shakespeare's use of metaphor in the first three Acts of Hamlet.
