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What are some literary devices used in the ghost's speech in Act 1, scene 5 in Hamlet?

When the ghost of Hamlet's father meets his son, he explains the circumstances of his murder and commands Hamlet to avenge it. In doing so, the ghost's lines include:


  • Inversion:  "My hour is almost come, /When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames/Must render up myself."

This inverted syntax was likely employed for metrical purposes.


  • Simile:  And each particular hair to stand on end,/Like quills upon the fretful porpentine

Here, the ghost tells Hamlet that if he could speak freely, what he would have to say would make Hamlet's hair stand on end, like quills on a startled porcupine.


  • Allusion:  "And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed/That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,"

Lethe was, in Greek myth, the spirit of forgetfulness, often associated with a river in the underworld.  


  • Metaphor:  "The serpent that did sting thy father's life/Now wears his crown."

The ghost uses a metaphor to identify Claudius, his murderer.  Claudius is the late King Hamlet's brother, and he has taken the throne of Denmark, along with his wife, Gertrude.


  • Repetition:  "List, list, O, list!" and "O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!"

These repetitions, the first to command Hamlet to listen, and the second to express the outrage of Claudius's fratricide and regicide, emphasize the pathos of the cruel and unnatural circumstances of the end of the ghost's earthly life.

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