In Hamlet, Shakespeare uses metaphors to express his distress towards life in his famous “to be or not to be” soliloquy. Here he debates the question of the choice whether to live or to die. Shakespeare give characters a three dimensional structure where Hamlet expresses his “Slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” The language device suggests he is going through a lot of suffering as the connotations of slings and arrows are projectile weapons. Furthermore, the phrase “outrageous fortune” expresses Hamlets feeling towards how unlucky he feels that he is experiencing this suffering.
The poem futility shares a common theme with Hamlets soliloquy as they both discuss philosophical matters such as the choice of life or death, and why does life exist? “Are limbs so dear achieved, full nerves, still warm, too hard to stir?” In this quotation the author questions why the human body has been created, in the end just to die. In comparison the two share similar language features; metaphors in this example used to portray distress and suffering. It is questioned in futility “Was it this that the clay grew tall?” The metaphor suggest that the author thinks there is no point in life if all this suffering occurs. Human life is described to as clay, and the development of life “clay grew tall”.
React!