Hamlet: Act III, Scene II

• Hamlet gives advice to the players → presumably to make the play seem more realistic; he tells them to act naturally, but not-overbearingly so as to create a natural flow, show realism
• “...let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action;”
• don’t over exaggerate your words and your hand-gestures
• Hamlet tells Polonius to get the actors ready as the King and Queen settle unto their positions → tells Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to help Polonius on getting the actors ready
• he tells Horatio that he is a man that he trusts wholeheartedly, calls him a good man → Hamlet is proclaiming his friendship and trust to Horatio (sees Horatio as the only person that hasn’t required/needed something out of Hamlet)
• “Observe my uncle”  → Hamlet asks Horatio to watch Claudius closely
• Claudius asks Hamlet how he is doing which earns him a nonsensical reply (Hamlet is reaffirming his status to Claudius as that of a man who has grieved to the point of madness)
• Hamlet makes witty comments, particularly sexual remarks to Ophelia; he also remarks on his father’s death → primarily on how fast his mother has moved on
• Players enter in order to enact the plays
• they reenact the death of the old King as a different story (dumb show)
• the actual play is of the King and Queen → King tells the Queen of his nearing death and tells her to marry someone else
• Hamlet becomes impatient when Lucianus (apparent nephew to the King in the play) takes too long on coming to the actual point → tells everyone the plot (Lucianus pours poison on the Kings ear, thus killing him)
• Claudius is seen with guilt; tells them to stop the play
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern tell Hamlet that Claudius is upset (and angry) and tell him that his mother wants to talk to him → Hamlet misinterprets it and gets angry at the two

“Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be play'd on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.”  

- Hamlet

Hamlet: Act III, Scene I

• King Claudius sees Hamlet as a threat
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern call his madness forth
• crafty; Hamlet hasn’t given any information away apart from the idea that he is a little off
• King Claudius → confesses to murdering King Hamlet
• Hamlet to Ophelia:
• It’s easier to bend beauty than honesty
• don’t have my kids because I am a sinner
• you’ll never have kids because that’s your best bet at innocence
• you literally paint yourself with makeup that make yourself look like someone else
• different identity
• foreshadow: someone’s going to die
• Ophelia tells Claudius and Polonius that Hamlet’s gone mad
• Claudius opposes, says Hamlet’s not crazy (only that there’s something bothering him) → he’s up to something, a threat to my throne and should therefore be imprisoned  

The Performative Utterance in Hamlet Notes

• Not a play about a man who couldn’t make up his mind, but rather about a man that couldn’t find the things in his mind to be real
• mental/emotional distress is turned into a tangible, physical act
• Hamlet is trapped from the transition of understanding his duty to the actual use of that understanding as a form of action
• Hamlet throughout the play is described as “all bark with no bite” → as he is seen throughout the play as able, but unwilling
• A division between what is done and what is said → certain languages don’t just describe action, but also acts that are being spoken
• performative action → acts that enable change in the world
• locutionary force: ability of language to deliver a message (mutual intelligibility)
• illocutionary force: what’s done in being said
• perlocutionary force: what is being achieved by being changed
• Bloom asserts that through self-overhearing, characters achieve self-reliance
• act of self-revelation or self-creation?
• a man that doesn’t realize the power of his agency, but is capable of using the spoken word could learn that his speech has actual powers to cause change in the world
• language both describes and does
• Performative utterances in Hamlet:
• meeting between Hamlet and ghost of his father → two oaths contained through Hamlet, and then Horatio & Marcellus
• there’s a problem in that Hamlet doesn’t take oath to actually take revenge, but only takes oath to remember the ghost → cognitive act that warrants no outside verification
• Consistent motifs: drama and playacting
• dramatic motif → presents opportunities of false performatives (to pretend to do)
• playacting motif → contains that of locutionary force, intelligibility of utterance
• Emotional reality a valid step when considering utterances such as “I mourn”
• establishes connection between use of language and one’s emotional well being
• Misrepresented intentions through act of mimesis
• subtle playacting that demands attention
• Hamlet’s ploy in acting “mad” in order to hide his attempts of revenge
• cover his investigation and clear him of his sins
• Pretending = not actually doing that thing you’re trying to pretend to do
• BUT in a performative utterance: in play-acting, one must distinguish pretend-saying and actual-saying → they’re identical

To be or Not to be Notes

“To be, or not to be: that is the question”

what is it that I’m being; is it truthful to be who I am

to act or not to act → to avenge my father’s death and change as a person as a result or to keep still and stay with the flow

“...slings and arrows…”

unbearable things he [Hamlet] has to deal with, or stand up and say to

“...to die, to sleep…”

not face it

“...’tis a consummation...”

ending; consider it attractive for a moment

“...ay, there’s the rub…”

dilemma, problem; envision good life

“yes. it’s attractive, but I don’t really know….”

“...the oppressor’s wrong...”

Claudius

“...the proud man’s contumely...”

Polonius; contumely → rude speech

“...pangs of despised love...”

love offered that’s despised

“...insolence of office…”

arrogance with a side of not so nice words

“...patient merit of the unworthy takes…”

dealing with these people requires lots of insults

“...bodkin…” → dagger

“I just want to kill myself” [in a joking matter; think modern, angsty teenager on the verge of a meltdown as he/she goes through the college application process]

“...to grunt and sweat under a weary life...the undiscovered country….”

should I shift gear or should I stay with the thorn stuck on my side?

“...thus conscience thus make cowards of us all…”

murder is justified BUT it’s still murder and our conscience reminds us of that → GUILT

(which is a good way to control people)

“...currents turn awry…”

juxtaposition on that end couplet → makes it more realistic, different when being observed

Hamlet: Act I Scene IV/V

[Hamlet] - rough interpretations

• → yes, it’s a custom but they should respect the old King and not celebrate it (his death)
• the drinking and partying makes us look bad; the other nations think us drunkards
• [Claudius] should be taking this seriously and should be mourning

“King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me!” - Hamlet

• Hamlet recognizes the ghost as his father; gives credibility to the ghost
• Remember: ghost is an omen (reinforces it) → unfinished business; shows something wrong with the balance of the kingdom

• Horatio and Marcellus warns Hamlet that the Ghost will trick him into doing something terrible

“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” - Marcellus

• moral and political corruption → foul play; Claudius’s misguidance as king

• Hamlet’s father (ghost) is in purgatory going to hell
• readers find out that he was murdered → king was sleeping in the garden when Claudius pours poison (snake venom) into his ear causing his blood to clot
• [rough interpretation]  Gertrude was seduced by Claudius even before the murder occurred
• giving over to lust
• (to Hamlet) “let God judge her and let her guilt consume her [Gertrude]”
• don’t let emotions rule you (act of revenge) → do it for your country and of your birth

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Hamlet: Act I Scene III

Laertes and Ophelia are siblings → Polonius is their father

• Laertes warns Ophelia of Hamlet
• “...the trifling of his favor...”  
• → Laertes calls Hamlet young, mentioning how his emotion towards her are brief and trivial; something that won’t last long as he grows older and gains more responsibilities
• “His greatness weighted, his will is not his own//For he himself is subject to his birth”
• he warns that Hamlet can’t own up to his emotions → he is birthed into a life that requires him to put aside his own wants and needs for the obligations he has to complete
• he tells Ophelia to think about her honor/status → falling for his seduction and opening her legs to him would result in controversy
• “keep you in the rear of your affection”
• Crudely translated to: “Dude, Ophelia. Control your emotions!”
• Ophelia tells Laertes that she’ll keep his warnings in mind → but to also practice what he preaches

• Polonius enters the scene
• talks to Laertes → gives him last minute advice
• he shifts gear and questions Ophelia about the talk she had with her brother
• Ophelia tells her father about Hamlet’s show of affection → he belittles her; essentially calls her stupid for falling for his “show of love” and warns her to keep out of Hamlet’s affections  

Hamlet: Act I, Scene II

• King Claudius mentions that:
• Young Fortinbras → wants to take back the land that King Hamlet won over during the war
• King Hamlet recently dead, roughly 1-2 months
• although it is an unfortunate event that King Hamlet has just recently died and grieving is essential, he wants the kingdom to move on in order to focus more on Fortinbras whom he calls “the enemy”
• Cornelius to give a message to Fortinbras
• “Suck it Fortinbras” - King Claudius
• Claudius → Prince Hamlet’s uncle, and now “father”
• Claudius marries his brother’s wife, Queen Gertrude, for the throne
• always calls to attention the fact that Hamlet is “too young with no experience”
• Queen Gertrude remains the queen because she marries her ex-husband’s brother; she’s in-between as she’s both the wife and the sister-in-law  

• [ASIDE] “A little more than kin, and less than kind.” -Hamlet
• rough interpretation: “Yes, we are cousin, but don’t call me kin or son”
• “don’t call me son; I don’t really like you”
• Hamlet wants to go to university, but Claudius doesn’t let him
• Claudius uses counterargument → calls him weak
• not letting Hamlet leave indicates a lack of trust
• “keep your friends close, and your enemies closer” scenario
• everyone can put a mask on, pretend → Hamlet insinuates that although Claudius is grieving on the outside, it doesn’t make it real  

• 1st of 6 soliloquy: [Hamlet]
• doesn’t really want to be where he’s at right now → Hamlet is essentially cursing everyone (especially Queen Gertrude and King Claudius)
• Alludes to Greek mythology → calls his father “Hercules” to signify a strong (titan), dignified person; basically calls Claudius a worthless person
• he calls his mom a promiscuous woman

• We see three sides to Hamlet:
• 1st → diplomatic prince: regal, noble, intelligent, observant
• 2nd → by himself (soliloquies): dramatic flares; we see a distraught teenager; bursts of emotions;    
• 3rd → private eye: asks a lot of direct question; can deduct logic through reason

Hamlet: Act I, Scene I

• There's a change in guard; Bernardo relieves Franciso of his post
•  Horatio and Marcellus enter the scene to accompany Bernardo 
• The three talk about something that has been lurking around

•  "What, has this thing appear'd again to-night?" 

•  "That if again this apparition come..."

• They've seen the "apparition" for the past two nights 
• Ghost enters the scene; he appears to look like the old king 
• They make Marcellus talk to the Ghost but it disappears
• The three talk about the similarities of the Ghost and the old king

• Ghost wearing the same armor that the king wore during combat
• Horatio tells the story of Fortinbras of Norway 
• Hamlet, the old king, slays Fortinbras of Norway; Fortinbras wants to take back the land from Hamlet  

• Ghost re-enters the scene; Horatio tells the "illusion" to speak, but the Ghost remains silent
• Bernardo thinks that the Ghost would've answered back if the crow hadn't croaked thus scaring it away
• The three want to tell Prince Hamlet all that has occurred