Hamlet Essay

To be or Not to be, that is the question. This line is at the core of Hamlet, it is articulating the difference of knowing and doing, and through this delves into the ideas of Perfromative utterance and over analyzing. The To be or not to be soliloquy is essential to the story because it is the story's deep philosophical theme. ( if one looks past all the other topical ones) 

When I memorized the Soliloquy there was a section of it that stood out to me. From ," that's the calamity that makes of so long life...'' till the end of  it. It stood out because hamlet starts naming things in life that seem pretty universal. " The Oppressors Wrong, the proud mans contumely...' Shakespeare makes a connection with the audience when he does this. He also makes the performative utterance connection with Hamlet. When Hamlet names off all these things, it suddenly becomes real. After this soliloquy we see the last real change in Hamlet; he becomes a man of action. 

So what I mean is that the To be or not to be soliloquy, even though he was talking to himself, seemed to incite action in Hamlet. And by doing this he bridged the gap from idea to reality. So with that being said many of our actions can only be as good as the qquality of our language. Not small things but cearrtainly things like killing your uncle. Because if you now you need to take him out, and your not a pyscopath, your gonna need to talk yourself through it. Again performative utterance. 

A while ago I was watching a youtube video about Slaughterhouse-5 and John Green was analyzing it. He went on to explain that the reason Billy Pilgrim made up all the aliens and their odd sense of time was that it alleviated the gulit he felt and in his mind took away his free will. Basically the Aliens that kidnapped him said that time is happening all at once. there is no future. past or present just all one thing. So if everything in the future is already decided then it's not his fault. So thats what Vonnegut said, I don't know if he believed it but that sounds like a pretty accurate analyzation to me. What shakespeare said was that we have a choice. We have free will,we can choose to listen to ourselves or others and act. Or we can choose not to. But why do we choose at all. It all comes down to passion. If you really care about something. Hamlet obviously has a hatred for Claudius. But in broader, more open source learning terms I believe that we can apply this. I'll give you an anecdote to help explain. 

Most High School students know that they have to do their work. And back in the late 70's my Uncle Bob was just your average High School Student. But at the start of his senior year he just completely lost interest in schhool. " Why do somthing you don't care about." So he dropped out and joined the military. 35 or so years later he's a truck driver living in Arizona. But everytime he visits he will sit and talk about his gun ammo reloading. This dude has it down to a science. He dropped out of high school andhe's telling me about the ballistics for a ceartain caliber, a ceartain gun powder and a ceartain grain bullet. The point is that he found something that he is passionate for. And I think that our public education system should allow students the best oppurtunity to find out what they are passionate about and allow them to pursue it. Because as John Lennon said, " when I grow up I want to be happy." And one way to do that is to allow children to find their passion. If a kid doesn't operate on math, like his brain just doesn't think that way, whats the point in forcing him to take high level math classes? Make sure he can add and subtract and then let him do his thing. I know I went off on a major tangent but Ive been thinking about this whole idea for a while so i felt like it needed to be said AND it did relate to Hamlet.

Hamlet Essay

Hamlet is, in Deboer's words, a play " about a man that cannot make real what is found in his mind." In other words there is a difference between knowing and doing.It's similar to sports in a way. Lebron knows he needs to make his free throws, but it's a different thing to actually do it. Clayton Kershaw knows he needs to throw strikes, but sometimes he doesn't. So in a lot of ways this simple difference of knowing and doing is very relevant to Athletes. Coaches call it execution, which is kinda ironic because that's what Hamlet has to do to Claudius: he needs to execute him. But just as you wouldn't call lebron crazy for missing free throws you can't call Hamlet crazy for not killing Claudius, " like it was nothin." But just as Lebron and Kershaw prepare, Hamlet does too, so that in that moment of execution Hamlet knows that wihout a doubt Claudius killed his Father and that he's sending him to hell. But we know Hamlet isn't crazy because of his plan to kill Claudius, and the performative utterance, or self talk that we hear especially in the To Be or not To Be soliloquy.

The defintion of Crazy is, "mentally deranged, especially as manifested in a wild or aggressive way." Key words "wild or aggresive." If Hamlet truly was Crazy then why didn't he go and kill Claudius right after the ghost told him too. That would have been wild and aggressive. And it's not like Hamlet doesn't care, that's evident from his first soliloquy, and his passive aggressive tone in which he speaks to Claudius and Gertrude, almost like he's brimming with pure hatred. No, Hamlet has to be Careful because he has to kill a man in a house with a lot of enemies. But not only will killing Claudius be hard logistically it will be hard emotionally and psychologically for Hamlet. It's like in the Movie "Saving Private Ryan" in the Final battle scene where Upum is standing on a stairway with a gun in his hand, listening to his friend get killed. He Knows what to do, he's smart, but the overwhelming sadness of what he has seen keeps him from making real what his mind tells him. and I think this is true for Hamlet in some ways too. He is somewhat emotionally paralyzed by the circumstances of his Father's death, but he can't project these felling's outward, he can't talk to anyone about them. no he projects them inward and internalizes them, and it's almost like his sadness is a reminder that he hasn't killed Claudius yet. Like Performative Utterance. But for Hamlet it's almost like it's a battle between the grief over his Father's death and The utter hatred of Claudius and Gertrude. " The re are two dogs inside me, one is good and one is evil. When asked which one wins, whichever I feed most." And as the pain of his father's death slowly subsides and the more he sees Claudius and Gertrude blissful and happy, one dog gets fed more than the other.  

" To be or Not to Be,'' that is the question, but you could almost rewrite it as to kill or not to kill. Regardless of how much reason Hamlet has to kill Claudius, it's still not easy to kill another human Being. And as Dr. Preston said, " Maybe that's proof that he's the most sane in the whole play." He's right. People say, " but he sees a ghost, how does that make him sane?'' The Ghost is just a metaphor. He personifies the " and above all, be true to thine self," outlook. That's why Hamlet can see him but Gertrude can't. Dr. Preston on Friday pointed out that the definition of stupidity is ignoring new information. Hamlet isn't ignoring new information, but he is staying true to what he believes in. If someone in the play came up with forensic evidence that Claudius did't kill Hamlet Sr and Hamlet didn't even take that into consideration, then we could call him stupid or irrational. But since that doesn't happen we know he's not. In fact the complete opposite happens. Hamlet puts together an elaborate scheme to gather more information on the situation and everything he finds point's toward Claudius being an unremoresful killer. So Hamlet isn't Crazy and he's not stupid.

The Rest of Act iii

So basically the rest of it is a scene where Hamlet sees Claudius praying, and contemplates killing him, but stops because he doesn't want Claudius to go to heaven. He says something to that essentially means that he'd bne doing Claudius a favor. So he decides to wait until Claudius is sinning before he " trips him up."