Hamlet: Act 1 Scene 3...Literary Findings

Binary Opposites
Polonius  Borrower vs. tender 82
Rich not gaudy 77
Love as an arrangements
Private vs. audience 101-102
Laertes  loves you now, you must fear 17 and 19
His (Hamlet) head vs. heart (Ophelia) on lines 27 and 35


Couplet Polonius  ends lines 47-48 in fear and near to create a couplet



Imagery
Ophelia  “watchmen to my heart” line 50. Ophelia talks about her brother’s warnings to her about her love affair with young Hamlet.
“steep and thorny way to heave” Ophelia is trying to contradict her brother by essentially saying he sleeps around as well (calling out the double standard). This is perhaps a theme Shakespeare trys to bring to attention about the double standard between men and women.

Laertes  “prodigal” is a word uses many times in his speech which seems to be a Biblical allusion of the prodigal son.
Polonius  uses the words “fashion” “money” when talking to his daughter about Hamlet. Both fashion and money are fleeting commodities and perhaps its his way of telling Ophelia that Hamlet’s love is temporary just as money and fashion are. The use of monetary terms shows he treats her as an object rather than daughter…yet he is warning her not to be a commodity to Hamlet.