also usesmetaphors again when he describes the "stars with trains of fire and dews of blood" (1.1.129). He seems to be talking about comets (which can seem to shine like stars and possess trains of debris and gas, not fire, though they might look like it, and they obviously do not sprinkle blood).

Like the opening of most Shakespearean plays, Act I scene 1 serves to establish the background situation and mood of the story.  In this play, scene one is out on the grounds of the castle of Elsinore.  The characters on the stage are all minor characters who through their conversation establish that there has been a ghost seen two times now that looks like the former king, King Hamlet.  The guards question the veracity of what they see, so they have enlisted Horatio, a scholar and friend of Hamlet's, to come are confirm the vision.

Through the course of the conversation Shakespeare uses several literary devices.  Here are a few examples:

Horatio claims that the the ghost "bodes some strange eruption to our state."  This visual imagery of the literal ground erupting with the dead body of the ghost coming from the grave is very creative and vivid.  This is also metaphorical because a state or country cannot literary "erupt" like a volcano might, but it can be unsettled politically and have the potential to face a terrible circumstance.

Marcellus asks why "the night is joint-laborer with the day."  This metaphor explains how there is little difference between night in day (they work together).  In this case, he is referring to the fact that the preparations for war are a 24 hour operation.

Horatio reports that Fortinbras has "in the skirts of Norway" gathered up some soldiers.  Norway's skirts is a metaphor for its outer edges, not its major cities.

He goes on to say that Fortinbras has "sharked up a list of lawless resolutes."  To shark up is a metaphor to suggest that he has indiscriminately gathered in (like a shark open-mouthed and capturing prey) a group of men to serve as a mercenary army.

Horatio makes an allusion to the assassination of Julius Caesar when he compares this ghost to the omens that were the precursors to the Ides of March.  He says this situation is like the "palmy state of Rome."

In the end of the scene, Horatio uses personification when he describes the coming dawn by saying that "the morn, in russet mantle clad / Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill."  Clearly, morning doesn't wear a coat or walk, but he is using personification to describe the color and action of the rising sun at dawn.

There are a huge number of literary devices in the opening scene of Hamlet, but here are just a few of them:

• Hendiadys. This rather strange looking word is a rhetorical device in which a complex idea is expressed using two words separated by a conjunction such as "and." So for instance, we have the following words spoken by Horatio in line 67-68:

But in the gross and scope of mine opinion
This bodes some strange eruption to our state. (Emphasis added).

Hamlet offers more metaphors to aid in describing the type of man he means that has "vicious moles":

...that these men,
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
Being Nature's livery or Fortune's star,
His virtues else, be they as pure as grace...

Here, the metaphor compares the "mole" of defect to (1) livery worn by servants to identify the noble or royal house to whom they belong and to (2) the chance of the astrological sign one is born under. Hamlet is saying that the "defect" is something a man wears (his "livery), bestowed upon him by "Nature" or given him by "Fortune," suggesting that a man's defect may come naturally by family or be a part of his astrological destiny.

There are several great metaphors in Hamlet's speech to Horatio during which Hamlet explains the weaknesses of man ("oft it chances in particular men") and where those weaknesses come from.

In a metaphor that compares the imperfections in man's nature to the tunnels destructively raised up by moles, he says that there may be "some vicious mole of nature" in man that destroys him.  Moles are tunneling mammals. Their raised tunnels destroy picturesque lawns from below. The damage occurs without there being a destructive influence in sight. These tunnels present the "o'ergrowth of some complexion"--the unexpected tunnels of some sort--that break down "the pales and forts of reason."

Hamlet talks about the "pales and forts of reason." He is using a military allusion to continue the mole metaphor: The tunnels, "o'ergrowth," destabilizes the palings--the picket fences--of the fort of the mind, the fort of reason and logic. He is talking about strength of mind and intelligence that can harmed by an undercurrent of innate psychological disturbance that tunnels through a man's reason and logic: "some vicious mole of nature."

Hamlet: Let me not burst in ignorance; but tellWhy thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,Have burst their cerements (49-51)

Hamlet, first addressing the Ghost, refers to the Ghost's bones as "canonized" because they were once buried in a tomb ("hearsed in death": hearse may be a canopy over a tomb) but have now "burst" from the grave.  This is an implied metaphor comparing his father's bones to the holiness of a saint, to one who is canonized and holy. This metaphor is a combination of personification (as if the bones themselves have broken out of the grave) and metaphor.  The entire phrase basically says: You were once buried with sanctity and holiness. Why now are you here before me?

Hamlet: Why, what should be the fear?I do not set my life in a pin's fee; (67-68)

Hamlet does not value his life at all ("pin's fee"), or my life is not worth more than a pin, therefore he is unafraid to go with the Ghost.  This metaphor compares Hamlet's life to a sewing pin: not worth much.

Here are a couple more metaphors to consider:

When the ghost first speaks to Hamlet he reveals that he that by day is confined to "fast in fires / Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature are burnt and purged away."  He is using the word fire as a metaphor for purgatory -- the afterlife that he is confined to for the part of his after life.  Denmark is a Catholic country that would have understood the concept of purgatory being a hell-like place where a soul would repent his sins and eventually would gain entrance to heaven, but it should be clear that purgatory is not a pleasant "waiting room," it is a grueling punishment.

The ghost connects to the irony of the "thoery" of his death when he tells Hamlet that the "story of his death" is that a snake stung him in his sleep,  and then delivers the shocking news that "the serpent that did sting thy father's life / Now wears his crown."  Comparing Claudius to a snake is such a obvious choice -- snakes since the Garden of Eden have had a sinister reputation for their sneaky and traitorous behavior. 

This scene is of course a very crucial one for the development of the rest of the play - Hamlet meets with the Ghost, who he believes to be his father's shade, and the Ghost tells him how Hamlet's father was killed and then makes Hamlet swear to revenge him. It is crucial for a number of reasons, as it drives the rest of this famous tragedy and also raises an important question of whether the Ghost can be trusted. Note how other characters and Hamlet himself later on in the play wonder whether the Ghost is truly his dead father or a messenger of darkness sent to spur Hamlet on his path to self-destruction.

There are lots of examples of metaphors used in this scene, so I will pick out just a couple. Firstly, consider how Hamlet responds to the news that his father was killed by murder "most foul, strange and unnatural":

Haste, haste me to know it,
that I with wings as swift
As meditation, or the thoughts of love,
May sweep to my revenge.

Note the implied metaphor here - Hamlet urges the Ghost to tell him more quickly so he can gain his revenge like an avenging angel - the words "wings as swift" and "sweep to my revenge" show how Hamlet imagines himself like an angel avenging the death of his father.

Another metaphor that is used just a bit further on by the Ghost is one that describes Claudius. The ghost calls him "that adulterate beast", which clearly expresses his abhorrence at Claudius for first killing him but then adding insult to injury by stealing his wife as well. The metaphor here describes Claudius to be sub-human - a kind of animal that cannot control his lust and has no moral principles to guide him with.

Hopefully this will help you in identifying a few more. Good luck!

Shakespeare uses one of his favorite techniques in this scene: dramatic irony. Dramatic irony occurs when the audience has information that characters in a story do not. We as the audience have witnessed Hamlet's encounter with the ghost, which Polonius knows nothing about. We know that the ghost's revelation is what is motivating Hamlet's behavior. We also have heard Hamlet say that he is going to pretend to be crazy. Much of the dark comedy of this scene comes from our knowledge juxtaposed against Polonius's cluelessness as he tries to make sense of Hamlet's behavior. Polonius will decide it is the result of lovesickness.

Hamlet himself employs imagery, which is description using the five senses of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. For example, we can see the unpleasant image of age Hamlet provides when he states that

old men have gray beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber . . .

Hamlet also uses repetition, which creates a sense of emphasis, such as when he says, "Words, words, words" and "except my life, except my life, except my life."

Alliteration occurs when Hamlet says the words "powerfully" and "potently" and in the repeated "m" sounds when Polonius states of Hamlet that "Though this be madness, yet there is method in ’t."

In William Shakespeare's Hamlet in Act 2, Scene 2 lines 170-214, Hamlet is having a conversation with Polonius, father of Ophelia, in which Hamlet is pretending to be insane. Polonius thinks that the reason for this insanity may be that Hamlet is deeply in love with Ophelia and suffering lovesickness.

Both Hamlet and Polonious are engaging in forms of duplicity, making indirect statements rather than direct ones, a rhetorical device known as "insinuation." Hamlet's description of an honest man as "one man picked out of ten thousand" is a form of hyperbole, or exaggeration.  Hamlet frequently interrupts himself or changes direction in mid-sentence, a device know as anacolouthon, as in:

For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog,
being a god kissing carrion,--Have you a daughter?

In attributing the slanders directed at old men to his reading, Hamlet simultaneously insults Polonius while claiming to be refraining from doing so, a device known as praeteritio.

In describing old men's eyes as "purging thick amber," Hamlet is using a metaphor, a comparison that does not use the explicit comparative terms "like" or "as." The overall extended description of old men is a form of ekphrasis, or vivid description.

Lines 185-190 are an aside, in which Polonius is speaking to himself rather than Hamlet.

Polonius tells Claudius and Gertrude that he believes he knows the reason why Hamlet appears to have lost his mind. He says,

And I do think—or else this brain of mine
Hunts not the trail of policy so sure
As it hath used to do—that I have found
The very cause of Hamlet's lunacy.  (2.2.46-49)

Here, the king's adviser uses a metaphor to compare politics to a trail that one is either cunning enough to follow or not; he also personifies his brain as something which can hunt, or follow, this so-called trail. Polonius means that he is fairly sure that he's uncovered the reason for Hamlet's crazy behavior, unless his brain has become somewhat less capable than it once was.  

King Claudius really wants to hear what Polonius has to say on this subject, but then Polonius tells him,

Give first admittance to th' ambassadors.
My news shall be the fruit to that great feast. (2.2.51-52)

Here, he uses a metaphor to compare his news of Hamlet to dessert. He compares whatever the ambassadors will have to say to a giant feast, and his own news will be the sweet thing at the end.

When Hamlet meets up with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, he asks them,

What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of fortune that she sends you to prison hither? 

Here, Hamlet uses a metaphor to compare Denmark to a prison. He, obviously, was not allowed to leave to return to college at Wittenberg, and so he probably does think of it as a place of punishment that he cannot escape.

Act 2, Scene 2 is the longest scene in the play. It is basically broken down into four parts:

• Polonius's conversation with the king and queen.
• Hamlet's first feigning madness in conversation with Polonius.
• Hamlet reuniting with school friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
• Hamlet meeting with the players.

Each of these sections contain many metaphors. Three of the best come from Hamlet himself, when he is pretending to be mad:

HAMLET: I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw. (ln. 264-265)

Hamlet here is saying that his knowledge (or madness) is based on the wind. Essentially he's saying, "I am only mad sometimes. When the wind is from the South, I know what is what."

HAMLET: That great baby you see there is not yet out of his swaddling-clouts. (ln. 266)

Here Hamlet calls Polonius a baby ("swaddling-clouts" is a word for "diapers"). He fully intends to be insulting, but the metaphor is that in calling Polonius a "baby," Hamlet is directly referring to the older man's lack of intelligence, experience, and possibly courage.

A final metaphor can be found a few lines up when Hamlet asks his friends about the troop of actors who are coming to the palace:

HAMLET: How comes it? Do they grow rusty? (ln. 252)

Such a metaphor is actually pretty common even today, speaking of someone or something getting "rusty" to mean old and not as sharp as it once was. These types of metaphors are in fact so common and acceptable, we often overlook them as figures of speech.

In Hamlet 3.4.17–53, Hamlet confronts his mother, Gertrude, for betraying his father and marrying Claudius, while she is alone in her room. In the middle of this confrontation, Hamlet hears a noise and stabs someone who is moving behind the curtain. He assumes that the person who is spying on their conversation is Claudius, but he soon discovers that he has accidentally stabbed Polonius instead. Tension is high throughout this scene.

In this important scene in the play, Gertrude narrates to her new husband, Claudius, what happened when she attempted to reason with Hamlet, her son, herself, whilst Polonius listened behind a tapestry. Of course, Polonius is killed by Hamlet as Hamlet hears someone eavesdropping and assumes it is his Uncle.

Interestingly, this passage contains far more examples of similes than metaphors, and I assume this is what you are trying to identify. Remember that both similes and metaphors are comparisons, but the only difference is that similes compare one thing to another with the words "like" or "as".

Gertrude describes her son's state of mind to her new husband as:

Mad as the seas, and wind, when both contend
Which is the mightier.

It is interesting that in comparing her son to the weather during a storm, she is perhaps trying to excuse her son's behaviour, for if it is as if the elements are battling for sovereignty within him, he can hardly be held accountable for his actions.

Claudius describes his regret at not acting to stop Hamlet sooner as follows:

But like the owner of a foul disease,
To keep it from divulging, lets it feed
Even on the pith of life.

Hamlet is described in explicitly negative terms here - as a foul disease that the owner lets spread out of fear of others knowing about it, even as it swallows up "the pith of life." Clearly, from the King's perspective, Hamlet is a cancer who threatens to eat up his sovereignty and position.

The final example I will point to comes from Gertrude when she tells Claudius where Hamlet has gone:

To draw apart the body he hath kill'd,
O'er whom his very madness like some ore
Among a mineral of metals base
Shows itself pure.

Note again how this simile presents Hamlet in a positive light - he shows himself to be "pure" in spite of his madness, and his condition is compared to a precious ore in a bed of worthless minerals that shows how precious and valuable it is, in spite of the surrounding rubbish.

Hopefully this will help you identify others. Enjoy!

Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple

A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom

Sith I have cause and will and strength and means

How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason
To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple

First of all, remember that a metaphor is a figurative comparison of two things that are not alike.  Many metaphors used in Shakespeare are almost implied and it is assumed that some were so common to the language of that time that they did not even stick out.

Indeed this scene is full of metaphors, as most of Shakespeare is.  I will give three that come at the beginning and are all spoken within the same conversation.  You can certainly read on in the text to find several more however.

OSRIC: ...Indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is the card or calendar of gentry, for you shall find in him the continent of what part a gentleman would see. (ln. 109-111)

Osric comes in speaking to Hamlet and Horatio of Laertes, putting Laertes up on a pedestal of greatness, honor, and dignity.  He is bragging about Laertes in a way that is almost obnoxious and insulting to Hamlet, who is about to engage in a wagered sword fight against him.  This metaphor compares Laertes to a business card for the upper classes, everything you would want or need in a gentleman.

HORATIO: ...His purse is empty already. All ’s golden words are spent. (ln. 130-131)

Horatio to Hamlet, saying basically, "Finally, he's done bragging on Laertes."  Here, the metaphor "purse is empty" refers to the kind things Osric has been saying about Laertes, and it seems he has finally run out of things to say.  Purse could be a metaphor here for Osric's mouth or his thoughts/words.

HAMLET: What call you the carriages? (ln. 154)
OSRIC: The carriages, sir, are the hangers.  (ln. 157)

Osric, in describing the weapons Laertes intends to use in the swordfight, refers to the sword holders as "carriages" more than once.  Hamlet does not understand what he is talking about.  A few lines later he even makes the comment that saying "carriages" makes it sound like we're pulling around cannons.  He then asks Osric to use the word "hangers" thereafter.  "Carriage" here is a metaphor for the piece of equipment used on the body for the sword to hang.

A simple but highly effective metaphor comes in act 2, scene 2 of Hamlet when Hamlet tells Rosencrantz and Guildenstern bluntly that

Denmark's a prison. (II, ii, 227)

This is a clear example of a metaphor, a comparison of two things that aren't alike, but nonetheless have something in common. Denmark isn't a prison, of course; it's a country. But to Hamlet in his present situation, that's precisely how it seems.

Since his wicked uncle and stepfather Claudius murdered his way to the throne, Hamlet has felt imprisoned by the oppressive atmosphere of the Danish court. Despite being a prince, with all the trappings of a comfortable, easeful existence, Hamlet will continue to feel like a prisoner so long as the man who murdered his father is sitting on the throne.

To be sure, it's not just Denmark that's a prison to Hamlet; the whole world is. He freely tells Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that the world is a “goodly” prison,

in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons. Denmark being one o' th' worst. (II, ii, 229-31)

For a sensitive soul like Hamlet, the whole world seems oppressive. Denmark may be one of the worst prisons, but it's actually one of many that collectively make up a world that Hamlet neither likes nor understands. One gets the impression from this exchange that Hamlet will feel oppressed by the crushing burden of existence wherever he goes and whatever he does. Metaphorically speaking, he will always be in prison.

In act 1, scene 2, in a soliloquy, Hamlet laments that the world he finds himself in is, metaphorically, "an unweeded garden," and that only "things rank and gross in nature" grow in this garden. At this point in the play, Hamlet's father has recently died and his mother has quickly remarried. Hamlet is contemplating suicide. The "unweeded garden" metaphor emphasizes how hopeless Hamlet feels at this point. As he sees it, the sins of the world, or the weeds of the garden, have been allowed to grow rampant. In the metaphorical garden there are no flowers, just as in the world there is no beauty, but only "things rank and gross."

In act 1, scene 3, Laertes tells his sister that Hamlet's professed love for her is no more than a "violet in the youth of primy nature … sweet, not lasting, / The perfume … of a minute." This proves to be a rather accurate metaphorical description of Hamlet's supposed love for Ophelia. Laertes's metaphor implies that Hamlet's love may seem attractive now, but, like a flower, it will wilt and die before long, and indeed this proves to be true: Hamlet shuns Ophelia and ultimately drives her to suicide.

Later in the play, in act 4, scene 5, we see Ophelia at the height of her madness. Although he doesn't know it, this is the last time that her brother, Laertes, sees her alive. In this scene he expresses profound grief for her situation. He calls her "Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia," and "rose of May." The rose is often considered the most beautiful of flowers, and May is the month when the buds of flowers begin to open, heralding the summer months to come. Thus, when Laertes describes his sister metaphorically as the "rose of May," he is implying that she is more beautiful than any other woman, and that her beauty brings with it warmth and light. There is also of course an ironic tragedy to the metaphor, as, like any flower, Ophelia's beauty, and life, will be short-lived.

The famous "To be or not to be" soliloquy is full of metaphors as well.  The whole first section of the speech is using the stock metaphor of death as sleep.  Hamlet says, "To die: to sleep; / No more; and by a sleep to say we end / The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks / That flesh is heir to."  While literal sleep gives our minds and bodies a repreive from the trouble of life, death will do the same forever.

At the end of the soliloquy Hamlet talks about "the undiscovered country."   He is talking about death and the afterlife.  What happens after death is like a new country for each person who dies because no one who dies can come back and tell us what this "new country" is like -- we can only discover it for ourselves.

If you read the complete soliloquy you can discover other metaphors that also tie into the themes of life and death, and the struggles humans endure on this earth.  Shakespeare is never a loss for metaphorical language. 

You can turn to any scene in this play and find dozens of examples of metaphors. For example, just in Act I, Scene i, I found these three:

Therefore I have entreated him along
With us to watch the minutes of this night, (referring to time)
It is a speck of dust to irritate the mind’s eye (referring to the appearance of the ghost, and what it means)
The rooster, that is the trumpet of the morning (referring to the rooster’s crow at the break of day)

This is the scene in which Horatio and Marcellus witness the ghost of Hamlet's father, the former king of Denmark who has been murdered by his brother Claudius. The king's ghost is appearing in an attempt to get his son, Hamlet, to avenge his death. Horatio and Marcellus have seen the ghost several times and at the end of this scene, they decide that should tell Hamlet about it.

You can read the enhanced text right here on enotes.

There are numerous examples of figurative language in Hamlet but here are just a few of them.

Let's start with a simile. This is a figure of speech which involves the comparison of two different things using "as" or "like." Obvious examples include "As strong as an ox," or "He eats like a pig."

In Act I Scene III of Hamlet Polonius, as is often the case, is dispensing advice, this time to his son, Laertes:

This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies But in battalions. (Act IV Scene V)

Allusion plays a significant role in the development of the play and its themes. There are many allusions to the Bible, including a few to the Garden of Eden. For example, Hamlet says,

O God, God,
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on 't, ah fie! 'Tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely (1.2.136–141).

Hamlet compares the world, now that his father has died and his mother has married her brother-in-law (who is, by canon law, her own brother) so quickly, to a garden that has become overgrown and rotten with weeds. This seems as though it could be a reference to the Garden of Eden, after Adam and Eve committed the original sin and fell from God's grace. They were cast out of Paradise and not allowed to reenter. Hamlet's mother and father, likewise, seemed to occupy a Paradise in Hamlet's mind while his father lived, as they seemed so perfect for one another and so happy. Now, however, Paradise has become corrupted by his mother's sinfulness (just like Eve's), and everything Hamlet looks upon disgusts him.

Furthermore, Hamlet's father was poisoned in his own gardens. The ghost tells Hamlet,

Now, Hamlet, hear.
'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,
A serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forged process of my death
Rankly abused. But know, thou noble youth,
The serpent that did sting thy father's life
Now wears his crown (1.5.41–47).

The ghost of Hamlet's father uses a metaphor to compare his brother to a serpent (the very creature into which the Devil changed himself to tempt Eve to sin in the Garden of Eden). Here, then, another allusion to the Garden of Eden paints Claudius as the Devil who corrupted Paradise, who morally ruined Eve/Gertrude. We see, through this allusion, that there is no redemption for this kind of moral ruin; all of the "rot" must be excised from the Danish court. Everyone involved in the rot must die, and Denmark must start over with a new ruling family.

One rhetorical device often used in Hamlet is metaphor. When Hamlet discusses how Claudius has damaged his kingdom, he says "Tis an unweeded garden that grows to seed." This is a metaphor because it is a description based on an implicit comparison between the kingdom and an untended garden.

Hamlet also contains similes, which are direct comparisons using the word "like" or "as." One example of this is "Reason, like sweet bells jangled."

Shakespeare also frequently employs alliteration, or repetition of beginning sounds in words. Examples include the phrases "frighted with false fire?" and "Be soft a sinews."

Lastly, Hamlet contains many allusions, which are indirect references to past works. For example, Claudius references Cain from the Bible when he says "It hath the primal eldest curse upon't, A brother's murder!"

Imagery is language that tries to capture or describe something one might experience with their senses: it can, therefore, be visual (something you could see), auditory (something you could hear), olfactory (something you could smell), gustatory (something you could taste), or tactile (something you could touch). We usually think of images as being purely visual, but literary imagery is different and inclusive of all senses.

After one particularly painful interaction with Hamlet, Ophelia describes his mind and reason as being "Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh" (3.1.158). This is an auditory image of bells that ring harshly and out of tune with one another. Ophelia uses this description, which is also a simile, to express her feeling that Hamlet has lost his mind, so to speak, and that his reason is no longer sound.

In this same speech, Ophelia describes herself as having "sucked the honey of [Hamlet's] music vows," an example of gustatory imagery (3.1.156). It is also a metaphor in which she compares the loving vows Hamlet once made to her to the sweetness of honey.

When Hamlet speaks to the First Player, he mentions how much he hates to hear a "robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters," providing a visual and auditory image of a ridiculous, wigged actor shouting a passionate speech, trying to impress the audience (3.2.8-9). He also employs a metaphor to a piece of cloth that could be literally torn to shreds, an additional visual image.

William Shakespeare's works are all replete with imagery, and Hamlet is no exception. Imagery is simply using language to create pictures (images) for the readers in order to enhance the meaning of the work. Hamlet is the protagonist of this play, and an examination of just his first soliloquy will provide several kinds of imagery.

First, Hamlet compares his life to an overgrown, weedy garden: 

'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely.

We know that Hamlet is grieving his father's death, so it is not surprising that he uses this metaphor to describe his life. 

Next Hamlet compares his dead father, King Hamlet, and his new step-father/uncle. He says,

So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr.

Hamlet is saying his father had all the qualities of Hyperion, one of the highest Greek gods, while his uncle has all the qualities of a satyr, a lecherous (lusty) beast which is half man and half goat. Imagery is useful here because, assuming one knows who Hyperion was and what a satyr is, a few words serve to draw a vivid comparison.

Next Hamlet compares his mother to Niobe, a goddess who cried in her grief even after she was turned into a statue. He condemns her for being "like Niobe, all tears," and then marrying her brother-in-law in less than a month. Here Shakespeare uses a more direct comparison, a simile, to make his point. 

Hamlet makes one more unflattering comparison in this speech, demonstrating how low a man Claudius is by saying Claudius is "my father's brother, but no more like my father / Than I to Hercules."

When Laertes lectures his sister, Ophelia, about not believing Hamlet when he says he loves her, he uses imagery. He warns her

Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain,
If with too credent ear you list his songs,
Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open
To his unmaster'd importunity.

Laertes is using "songs" as a metaphor for Hamlet's words of love, and he refers to Ophelia's virginity as her "chaste treasure" which Hamlet must not be allowed to "open."

When Hamlet gets angry with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Act III, scene ii, he uses the prolonged imagery of music to demonstrate his theme. Hamlet says, "do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? / Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you cannot play upon me." This metaphor of "playing" and "instruments" is used to further confuse Hamlet's two rather befuddled friends. 

These are just a few simple examples of Shakespeare's use of imagery in Hamlet. Imagery is useful to help deepen the readers' appreciation of the meaning of a work, and Shakespeare paints word pictures for his audiences by using similes, metaphors, and allusions, among other things, to enhance our understanding of the play.   

In Hamlet Shakespeare frequently uses imagery related to disease to convey the toxic wave of moral corruption that's engulfed Denmark since Claudius murdered his way to the throne. The very air is polluted with corruption, so much so that Hamlet finds it nothing more than "a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours." Graphic images of ulcers, pustules, pleurisy, and apoplexy abound, giving the unmistakable impression of a country that's dying. In Denmark under Claudius, even virtue itself cannot escape the prevailing contamination unleashed by his perfidy:

Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes: The canker galls the infants of the spring, Too oft before their buttons be disclosed (Act I Scene ii).

It's not just the imagery of physical disease that's used by Shakespeare, but mental illness too:

Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseased: but, sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command (Act II Scene iii).

In act 3, scene 3 Claudius is at prayer, praying for forgiveness for his brother's murder. Watching from a distance, Hamlet mulls over whether he should take the opportunity to kill his wicked uncle right there and then. He decides against it, reasoning that he might send Claudius to heaven rather than hell, and he's not prepared to take the chance. So Claudius will get to live another day, but his prayer will be but a temporary measure to delay the inevitable; it cannot cure him of the disease of wickedness:

This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.

In Claudius's counterfeit kingdom, the old values are turned upside down. Even love itself has been corrupted and diseased, as the behavior of Gertrude amply demonstrates. According to Hamlet, his mother has replaced the blossom of true love with a nasty blemish:

Such an act That blurs the grace and blush of modesty, Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose From the fair forehead of an innocent love And sets a blister there, makes marriage vows As false as dicers' oaths (Act III Scene iv).

Imagery is a type of language that appeals to the audience's five senses. Throughout various scenes in the play Hamlet, Shakespeare utilizes imagery to create an atmosphere, emphasize themes, and build suspense. In Act One, Scene 2, Shakespeare utilizes imagery throughout Hamlet's first soliloquy. Hamlet expresses his displeasure with life by comparing it to an unweeded garden. He says,

"'Tis an unweeded garden that grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature possess it merely. That it should come to this..." (Shakespeare, 1.2.135-138).

The audience visualizes a garden that is in disarray and smells foul, which represents Hamlet's despair.

In Act One, Scene 4, Hamlet is following his father's ghost and comments on his current state of mind. Shakespeare employs imagery to describe Hamlet's excitement to meet with the Ghost by writing,

"My fate cries out and makes each petty artery in this body as hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve" (1.4.86-89).

The audience can feel and sense Hamlet becoming anxious as he follows his father's ghost.

In Act One, Scene 5, Shakespeare again employs imagery to recreate King Hamlet's murder. King Hamlet's ghost gives a vivid visual representation of how Claudius murdered him while he was sleeping in an orchard. The audience visualizes Claudius carrying out the murder and can sense how the poison flowed through King Hamlet's blood. The Ghost tells Hamlet,

"Sleeping within my orchard, my custom always of the afternoon, upon my secure hour thy uncle stole with juice of cursed hebenon in a vial, and in the porches of my ears did pour the leperous distilment, whose effect holds such an enmity with blood of man that swift as quicksilver it courses through the natural gates and alleys of the body and with a sudden vigor doth posset and curd, like eager droppings into milk, the thin and wholesome blood. So did it mine. And a most instant tetter barked about, most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust all my smooth body" (Shakespeare, 1.5.59-74).

While Claudius is attempting to pray, Shakespeare utilizes imagery throughout Claudius' soliloquy, which allows the audience an opportunity to share Claudius' feelings of remorse. Claudius says,

"Oh, my offence is rank. It smells to heaven...I stand in pause where I shall first begin, and both neglect. What if this cursèd hand were thicker than itself with brother’s blood? Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens to wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy but to confront the visage of offence? And what’s in prayer but this twofold force, to be forestallèd ere we come to fall or pardoned being down? Then I’ll look up. my fault is past" (Shakespeare, 3.3.38-52).

The audience senses the foul odor and visualizes bloody hands which represent Claudius' offense. The audience gains insight into how Claudius views his actions through Shakespeare's use of imagery.

Shakespeare, the Bard, regularly uses double entendres (word games), metaphors (even extended ones) and allusions. These are things that Shakespeare uses a great deal in his plays.

Double entendres: When Claudius demands to know where Polonius' body is hidden, Hamlet explains that he is at supper. When questioned, Hamlet explains that it is not about what Polonius eats, but what eats Polonius. This is words with double meanings. Hamlet does this quite a bit with the innocent Ophelia. Because he believes she has betrayed him and he cannot trust her, he torments her with insults, like "Get thee to a nunnery," and with feigned madness, like running in to her chamber half undressed. Then, after this cruel treatment, when Polonius dies, she loses her mind.

Another example of word play and double meaning is that when Hamlet arranges to have the players present a play to "catch the conscience of a King," he tells the members of the court that the play is entitled Mousetrap—what a clever way to infer that he is searching out a "rat" or some other vermin: namely Claudius.

One implied metaphor is when Hamlet explains that he has little value for his miserably saddened life, thus little fear of losing it from an encounter with a ghost. When Horatio worries about his friend approaching Old Hamlet's ghost, Hamlet notes:

Why, what should be the fear?
I do not set my life in a pin's fee; (I.iv.67-68).

What Hamlet means is that the cost of a pin (an insignificant cost as pins are usually sold many at a time for one price) is worth more than Hamlet's life, or so he feels in his tragic circumstances of a dead King and father and an abominably remarried Queen and mother.

As an allusion, Polonius notes that he once acted the part of Julius Caesar and was stabbed by Brutus. This is an historical allusion to the Roman Emperor, Julius Caesar, and one of his assassins. The allusion also provides foreshadowing of what will come because it will be the way that Polonius dies: Hiding in Gertrude's room behind a curtain ("arras"), Hamlet stabs him believing him to be a traitor in Queen Gertrude's room.

I did enact Julius Caesar; I was killed i' the Capitol;
Brutus killed me. (III.ii.98-99)

In addition to the devices listed above, you could also consider such elements of the play itself such as structure, methods of characterization, and theme.  You could also look for examples of irony and motif, like the irony of death by killing coming to almost all when Hamlet was trying to avoid killing and the motif of betrayal of friends by friends.

The play is a typical five-act structure with Act 1 being primarily for exposition; Act 2 is the rising action with further complication; Act 3 brings the climax (point of no return); Act 4 is the falling action; and Act 5 is the resolution of the conflicts. 

It is always interesting to consider which exact action or choice by the main character marks the climax of the play.  In this case is it Hamlet's decision not to kill Claudius when he has a chance or is it the killing of Polonius?

When you consider methods of characterization you think about how the author uses a blend of what characters say, do and think (direct characterization) as well as what others say about them (indirect characterization) in order to develop the complete character.  This is certainly a valuable study for many of the characters in the play.

There are many themes in the play: life/death; what happens after death; fate/providence; love/marriage; revenge; kingship; friendship; action vs. inaction. This names but a few. What others might there be?

Shakespeare used a wide variety of literary devices in all of his plays, and a lengthy essay would be needed to discuss them all. I can explain a few of them, as well as provide a link that will help you further understand them. Each example below is from Hamlet's famous speech in Act III, scene 1 ("To be or not to be"):

antithesis: contrary ideas expressed in a balanced sentence

Example: "To be, or not to be, that is the question:" (opposite ideas of being or not being, living or dying, are expressed in this sentence).

alliteration: repetition of an initial consonant sound in two or more words of a phrase, line or sentence.

Example: "With a bare bodkin?" (the "b" sound beginning bare and bodkin).

allusion: the mention of a person, event or condition thought to be familiar (but sometimes actually obscure or unknown) to the reader.

Example: "The fair Ophelia.--Nymph, in thy orisons/Be all my sins remembered" (a nymph is a mythological entity, or mythological allusion).

soliloquy: a speech delivered by a character in a play while talking to themselves but "overheard" by the audience.

Example: Hamlet's entire "To be or not to be" speech is a soliloquy; it is to himself and meant to be heard by the audience.

Imagery, the representation through language of sense experience, is elaborately employed in Hamlet as a means of conveying underlying meaning in a concrete way while also evoking emotion.

"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark," Marcellus declares in Act I, Scene 4.  Indeed, the most prevailing images in Shakespeare's Hamlet are olfactory.  Marcellus's use of the phrase "state of Denmark" indicates that corruption exists in the entire hierarchy of the country, a theme of the play. Cleary, the graveyard scene of Act V represents this spiritual rotting as images of decay are suggested in Hamlet's conversation with clown as he asks him how long a man can lie in the ground before he begins to rot and the clown replies,

I' faith, if he be not rotten before he die—as we
have many pocky corses nowadays that will scarce hold the
laying in—he will last you some eight year or nine year. A
tanner will last you nine year. (5.1.158-162)

Even Claudius himself speaks of state of things as "rank" and "smell[ing] to heaven." Indeed, the general sense of inward and unseen corruption, of the man helplessly succumbing to a deadly and `foul disease' [IV.1.21], which feeds `even on the pith of life' is very prevalent throughout the play as it underscores theme.

Even Hamlet's olfactory sense is reserved for evil scents which evoke in him an intense repulsion as he reacts to the repugnance of badly prepared food.  This repulsion for smells is translated into his revulsion of Polonius in Act II, for instance, as he calls the courtier a "fishmonger," alluding also to maggots in a dead dog.

Accompanying the olfactory imagery, there is also the visual imagery of weeds that suggests this spiritual decay and evil in court of Denmark. For instance, Hamlet speaks of the world as an "unweeded garden" and asks his mother to not

spread the compost of the weeds

To make them ranker (3.4.152-153)

Further, there are images of sickness and death that appear throughout,  images that are greater than in any other play of Shakespeare's.  This symbolic image of disease calls for a cleansing, and Hamlet eventually becomes convinced that he must kill Claudius, "this foul body of the infected world," the main cancer in Danish society.

Certainly, olfactory, gustatory, and visual imagery are especially effective in representing the corruption in the court of Denmark, a corruption that sickens Hamlet and disables him temporarily until he realizes that he must truly rid Demark of its disease.