Hamlet's Extract: denotative analysis lines 1 to 21

There are two characters: Hamlet and his mother. He is speaking and his mother is listening.

Hamlet focuses his mother's attention on two portraits: his father's one and his uncle's one. His father is dead and now his uncle is the new king. Hamlet compares his father to Greek divinities like: Hyperion, Jove, Mars and Mercury.

He remembers his father as a good husband and a good man.

In a second moment he describes his uncle, who has married his mother: he is not a very good man and his mother knows it. He uses words with a negative connotation to describe his uncle. Hamlet also asks to his mother what does she think about her new husband. It appears clearly that in Hamlet's opinion his father was a better man than his uncle.