Hamlet Essay

People’s perception of one another is made so quickly. We judge each other based on what we do and say. For someone who says things and never acts on it, I would consider that person to be all talk and no action. As you can probably tell, that’s how I originally judged Hamlet. He talked a big game but never really followed through. After reading deBoer’s essay I had to reconsider my initial judgement of Hamlet. Throughout Hamlet, there are many performative utterances which make us think that maybe words can make just as much of an impact as actions do. 

  Since Hamlet is a character in a story we are unable to fully know everything that he is thinking but through self- overhearing we are able to get a better understanding of how Hamlet thought about things. When we were told memorize “To be, or not to be” I originally thought that there was no point to it. I soon realized that there was a point, by memorizing this soliloquy I was able to put myself in the place of Hamlet and understand more about the character than just reading what was written. I was able to hear myself speaking and know the words in a different more meaningful way. As Hamlet is saying these speeches he is not just talking he is learning about himself as well as the other characters and the audience are learning about him. 

    The obvious question we ask ourselves and the characters ask themselves throughout the play is “Is Hamlet crazy?” Well to be completely honest I thought he was. The way he was calm one second then killing Polonious the next made me think that maybe he was crazy. But as the play progressed I realized he was just manipulating everyone. He wasn’t mad he just wanted people to believe he

was.Through Hamlet’s soliloquies we can conclude that Hamlet may be distraught and sometimes a little irrational but he is certainly not crazy. He is conflicted throughout the whole play on what he know is right and wrong and what he does. We can see that his words affect everyone: the characters, the audience and even himself.