what is an asides? Unlike a soliloquy that is spoken when the speaker is the only actor onstage, an aside is spoken by an actor when there are other actors present on the stage. The aside is also meant for the audience, but sometimes an aside is spoken to an actor(s) on the stage, but not to all of the actors on the stage. How do the asides in "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare effect the dynamics of the play? The asides in "Hamlet" have several different dramatic functions; Some of the asides are used to add a bit of irony to the play, others are premonitions of what is going to happen in the play (one is even an ironic premonition), and yet others (most importantly) can be used to look into the character of the actor by what he says of others or what he says of himself (or too himself), and finally all of the asides have the function of helping to set the plot of the play. (I use the male gender because I did not encounter an aside from a female).

             The first line said by Hamlet in "Hamlet" is an aside in which Hamlet tells us his feelings on the King of Denmark, his uncle Claudius. What he says turns out to be very ironic after his confrontation with the ghost, "A little more than kin, and less than kind" (1.2.66). Hamlet and the King are not direct kin, that is to say father and son, or siblings, but the King is married to his mother. He is only the nephew of Claudius, but also now in the position of a son within the marriage. Hamlet is not on good terms with the King after the hasty marriage to his mother. It turns out to be ironic what Hamlet has chosen to tell us here, the King turns out to be his 'arch-enemy". His feelings towards the King are questionable and soon he will find out that the King is an enemy to the state of Denmark and the cause of why Hamlet is the state of mind that he is in. This aside will culminate with the story of the ghost to form the heaviest part of the plot of the different subplots.