from my other blog
Monday, November 14, 2016
hamlet, act ii scene ii, deploring inaction, thoughts on repression
hamlet here makes his famous excellent speech deploring his own inaction right after enjoying a monologue about hecuba, delivered for him personally by one of the best actors in his nation. he realizes sadly that an actor can summon the most genuine expressions and words based on 'nothing' - since in reality, hecuba is 'nothing to him,' not part of the actor's actual life...
...whereas hamlet himself, under his circumstances, has so many 'real' reasons to emote, to express, to act - and if he did, what would emerge would be so much greater and so much deeper than what the actor in question just did - yet he can't seem to do it. it seems that on some level, hamlet is not simply talking about 'acting' in terms of the 'act' of avenging his father, but also the simple ability or tendency to 'emote,' even in extreme circumstances. and that he actually likens 'emoting' to a kind of prostitution, which is interesting, an effective way of explaining how many 'repressed' sorts actually feel - that 'emoting' cheapens a person's inner life or sense of self-respect, to the point of resembling prostitution.
later in the passage, one might also make a connection between 'non-emoting/repression' and a kind of objectivity that allows for constant questioning of whether one's subjective experience is real (e.g. is the ghost a function of God or the devil? should i emote or act if i don't know what is true?)
sparknotes explains the prostitution metaphor in terms of what i see now as an obvious outer intention - expressing the opposite (of emotional repression) - that he has fallen to doing nothing but 'cursing like a... in the streets' out of fear and hesitation.
but what supports this other side of it is that a) hamlet begins the passage talking about an actor's ability to emote and b) hamlet follows his emoting-as-prostitution metaphor with the suggestion of putting on a play which can do that job of emoting 'for' him - but in a more dignified way - while effectively revealing the guilt of king claudius in the process.
HAMLET
Now I am alone.
...whereas hamlet himself, under his circumstances, has so many 'real' reasons to emote, to express, to act - and if he did, what would emerge would be so much greater and so much deeper than what the actor in question just did - yet he can't seem to do it. it seems that on some level, hamlet is not simply talking about 'acting' in terms of the 'act' of avenging his father, but also the simple ability or tendency to 'emote,' even in extreme circumstances. and that he actually likens 'emoting' to a kind of prostitution, which is interesting, an effective way of explaining how many 'repressed' sorts actually feel - that 'emoting' cheapens a person's inner life or sense of self-respect, to the point of resembling prostitution.
later in the passage, one might also make a connection between 'non-emoting/repression' and a kind of objectivity that allows for constant questioning of whether one's subjective experience is real (e.g. is the ghost a function of God or the devil? should i emote or act if i don't know what is true?)
sparknotes explains the prostitution metaphor in terms of what i see now as an obvious outer intention - expressing the opposite (of emotional repression) - that he has fallen to doing nothing but 'cursing like a... in the streets' out of fear and hesitation.
but what supports this other side of it is that a) hamlet begins the passage talking about an actor's ability to emote and b) hamlet follows his emoting-as-prostitution metaphor with the suggestion of putting on a play which can do that job of emoting 'for' him - but in a more dignified way - while effectively revealing the guilt of king claudius in the process.
HAMLET
Now I am alone.
Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wanned,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing—
For Hecuba!
What’s Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba
That he should weep for her? What would he do
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appall the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing—no, not for a king,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damned defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me “villain”? Breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by the nose? Gives me the lie i' th' throat
As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this?
Ha!
'Swounds, I should take it, for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-livered and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave’s offal. Bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
O vengeance!
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murdered,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words
And fall a-cursing like a very drab,
A scullion! Fie upon ’t, foh!
About, my brain.—Hum, I have heard
That guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have, by the very cunning of the scene,
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaimed their malefactions.
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I’ll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle. I’ll observe his looks.
I’ll tent him to the quick. If he do blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil, and the devil hath power
T' assume a pleasing shape. Yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me. I’ll have grounds
More relative than this. The play’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.
