In Hamlet's soliloquy in Act 1, Scene 5, what literary devices are used, and what purpose do they serve (e.g. how do they shape Hamlet as a...

Let us try for three distinct, substantial literary devices used in the soliloquy from act 1, scene 5, of Hamlet.

Irony: Irony is the most prominent literary device in Hamlet's soliloquy. Obviously "irony" is a common word, and, in common usage, it has taken on a more general and complex meaning than it does in strict literary analysis. To keep things rigorous, we will go with Merriam-Webster's definition: 3(a): "incongruity between the actual result of...

Let us try for three distinct, substantial literary devices used in the soliloquy from act 1, scene 5, of Hamlet.

Irony: Irony is the most prominent literary device in Hamlet's soliloquy. Obviously "irony" is a common word, and, in common usage, it has taken on a more general and complex meaning than it does in strict literary analysis. To keep things rigorous, we will go with Merriam-Webster's definition: 3(a): "incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result; an event or result marked by such incongruity."

Compared with the rest of the play, the whole of this soliloquy is true, textbook irony. Hamlet is fiery here, confronted with a terrible injustice and inspired to right it through revenge. He calls on all considerations of his past life to be swept aside:

Yea, from the table of my memory I'll wipe away all trivial fond records, all saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, that youth and observation copied there; and thy commandment all alone shall live within the book and volume of my brain (1.5.98-103).

This is the precise opposite of what actually happens. The remainder of the play results in Hamlet, the complex, vacillating human, suffering at the hands of the conflict between the "trivial fond records" of his past and "the saws of books" that constitute his philosophy, principles, and the ancient imperative of revenge. The story of Hamlet is the story of the title character's ironic failure to live up to the values he commits himself to in this soliloquy, which ultimately culminates in his ironic death at the hands of Laertes, who does precisely what Hamlet fails to do and kills his father's killer.

Imagery: Much of Hamlet's soliloquy turns on the single image of Hamlet's mind as a book. He has already been established as an educated, philosophical man recently returned from the great European university at Wittenberg. In the quote under Irony above, in which Hamlet speaks of "the table of my memory," he refers to a document: here "table" refers to a text, as in "tablet." He pictures his mind as a book full of academic abstraction and the memories of youth. He then calls on himself to erase every word, to wipe himself blank, in order to no longer function as a man but to function solely as a tool for revenge. "And thy commandment all alone shall live within the book and volume of my brain, unmixed with baser matter: yes, by Heaven!" (1.5.103-04). 

Apostrophe: Hamlet begins his soliloquy by discussing what he feels he will need to carry out the revenge called for by his father's ghost. He addresses both Heaven and Earth as if they are human allies he wants to rally to his cause: "O all you host of heaven! O earth! what else? And shall I couple hell? O, fie! Hold, hold, my heart; and you, my sinews, grow not instant old, but bear me stiffly up!" (1.5.92-95).