Hamlet
...h Hamlet’s detached reaction toward the dramatic tragedy in the player’s soliloquy. As a result, Shakespeare’s juxtaposition of a play within Hamlet and contrast of emotional responses between Hamlet and Polonius serves two major purposes. First, it offers the audience a greater insight about the differences between Hamlet and Polonius, thus enhancing the understanding for their perpetual suspicions and conflicts with each other. Second, in a global context, it relates Polonius to the theater audience by showing how people often respond feelingly even to things they know to be untrue. After observing a player’s dramatic soliloquy about the tragedy of a king, Hamlet reminiscence’s his intense sorrow for his deceased father and renewed thoughts for vengeance upon Claudius. Contrary to Polonius’s emotional, teary response to the player’s drama, Hamlet’s bitter comments detaches himself from any feeling of sympathy toward the player king and reflects his indifference for the long-dead figures in the fictitious tragedy. In fact,...