Hamlet Essay

Hamlet

            In the play Hamlet, the protagonist, Hamlet, is indecisive and talks about what he wants to do and how to do it but we hardly see him carrying out his plans until the very end of the play. However, these scenes of Hamlet talking to himself are a major part of the play. The importance of performative utterance in the play and my own self is that it helps us get a clearer and better picture of what we think, which helps us make better decisions for the task at hand. They also let us see into Hamlets thoughts and desires. The soliloquies give us an insight on the course of the play.

            The way Hamlet speaks is a part of the action of the play because it is our, the audience’s, way to see what Hamlet is thinking about to do next. When Hamlet talks to himself he questions what his is doing, why he is doing it, and how he will go about doing it. Most of the soliloquies foreshadow what will happen later on in the play. In the “To be, or not to be…” soliloquy Hamlet asks Ophelia to pray for him because he is about to commit a sin. The sin being murder or suicide. This foreshadows the end of the play where Hamlet kills Laertes and Claudius, as well as killing Polonius earlier on in the play and sending Rosencrantz and Guildstern to their deaths.

            When Hamlet speaks to himself, he affects the plot of the play in the way mentioned earlier. He foreshadows what is to come. Hamlet also affects the characters as well. During the “To be, or not to be…” soliloquy, Claudius is eavesdropping and when he hears the soliloquy he no longer believes Ophelia is the source of Hamlet’s depression. In an earlier soliloquy Hamlet decides to write the play and set up Claudius. This is a way his talking affects the plot as well.

            When you hear yourself talk you can see through your thoughts more clearly. You get a greater understanding of what you really want to do and how to do it. Hamlet does this in his soliloquies. He talks through his thoughts and he gets a clearer picture of what is on his thoughts. Emotions like anger and rage and distort your thoughts but by talking it out you can dilute their effects. Also another benefit of hearing yourself talk is that you tend to remember it more if you hear it, even if it is from your own mouth.

            Hamlet talks his way through his clouded thoughts and judgments. By doing this he gets a better and clearer picture from which he can decide how to act upon it. His soliloquies foreshadow what he will do in the play. Also they can affect other characters in the play and even the plot itself. By talking his thoughts, Hamlet is able to cause action in the play because if he didn’t talk, he would have remained indecisive and lost. With out performative utterance Hamlet would have been lost and made the wrong decisions on how to go about his plan of action. Performative utterance is just important in our own lives for much of the same reasons.