«La primera obligación de todo ser humano es ser feliz, la segunda es hacer feliz a los demás»

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Act 3 Scene II- Notes

Act 3 Scene II
- Hamlet is giving instructions to his players; act naturally, don’t overplay emotions
- Polonius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern tell Hamlet that the king and queen will be attending the play
- Hamlet confides in Horatio, sees him as a good man; asks him to watch Claudius closely during a specific scene
- Wishes to see his guilt, both will compare what they have observed
- Party arrives; Hamlet makes his usual witty remarks
- Makes another reference to the short lapse of time that is given for the grief of his father’s death
- Scene unfolds, very similar to the happenings of King Hamlet’s murder
- Player King and Player Queen are eerily familiar; Gertrude and Claudius show their dislike
- Hamlet says that play is based on a murder done in Vienna, nonetheless they leave
- Horatio did perceive the guilt in Claudius
- Guildenstern returns with a request from Gertrude; Hamlet has struck her so much with “admiration” that she wants to speak to him in her closet
-Rosencrantz attempts to discover the reasons for Hamlets distemper; Hamlet bites back by saying that although they have already deceived him they cannot play him as they would an instrument
- Polonius arrives saying that Gertrude wants to speak to him now
- “now I could drink hot blood” Hamlet seems to be ready to take out his revenge

Act 3 Scene I- Notes

Act 3 Scene I
- Claudius now begins to see Hamlet as a potential threat; notices he’s witty/intelligent
- Claudius and Polonius will spy on Ophelia and Hamlet to find out is she is the true reason for his “madness”
- Polonius states that if one appears devoted and pious they can hide their true self
- Claudius (in his aside) agrees and makes a reference to the murder he enacted
- ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy takes place; it is apparent his conscience prolongs the duty of murdering his uncle
- Throughout his encounter with Ophelia, Hamlet suspects that she has been put up for the conversation
- States that he no longer loves her; tells her to go to a nunnery as soon as possible
- Insinuates that he knows what Polonius is up to
- Touches on the subject of manipulation and the falseness of women
- “all but one, shall live” hint of the murder of Claudius
- Ophelia misinterprets Hamlet, thinks of him as noble
- Claudius no longer believes he is mad with love; he now fears and wants to send him off
- Polonius doesn’t let go of his “love” argument and asks that Gertrude talk to Hamlet while he spies

Notes- "The Performative Utterance in William Shakespeare's Hamlet"

The Performative Utterance in Hamlet

-          Hamlet knows what must be done yet he can’t bring himself to do it
-          We are exposed to Hamlet’s great influence with words but notice that he prolongs his revenge as he tries to convince himself to act
-          Performative language ‘acts’, through locutionary force (mutual intelligibility); illocutionary force (what is being said); and perlocutionary force (consequences of what was said)
-          Language can create reality if used correctly
-          Bloom argues revelation comes to characters from self-overhearing; is it revelation or creation?
-          Paper will discuss whether Hamlet realizes that his speech can actually create change

-          Reason for self-overhearing= presenting inner self to audience
-          Can only utilize what was written in the text to explore what was truly meant
-          Meeting between Hamlet and ghost= two oaths; demonstrate the effect of the illocutionary force on the perlocutionary force
-          The oaths (illocutionary) drive action and result in perlocutinary effect (success or failure)
-          Thought à language à action
-          Problem lies in the fact that Hamlet only swears to remember the foul crime, not to revenge it
-          Therefore the oaths contain no power and performative utterances are not as driving as they would’ve been

-          Playacting is said to only contain locutionary force but not illocutionary (b/c it lacks context)
-          Hamlet knows that he is unable to enact revenge therefore turns to words, creates a self-loathing
-           Hamlet feels the necessity to accompany words with a display of emotions; mechanism of performativity
-          Connection is established between language and emotion
-          Belief of presence of emotion leads to belief in authenticity (important)
-          Problem of play= misrepresentation of intentions; mimesis
-          Central mimetic act= when Hamlet plays mad to hide his intention of revenge
-          To overreact is to risk authenticity, to lose the visage of sincerity
-          Hamlet must make his madness appear natural, as he advises his players to do
-          In order to pretend you must actually do; therefore in playacting the locutionary value between when pretending and not pretending is identical
-          Only difference between two statements is the motivation behind the speaking
-          Constative value of utterance + manifestations of emotions = effective performative utterance

-          Hamlets utterances have illocutionary force of appearing mad
-          Polonius believes this because he represents the formal idea of self (pre-modern)
-          Through his madness he can explore his own identity; his previous identities being unreal
-          “all of us create ‘utterly different yet self-consistent’ visages of ourselves every day”
-          Lacking necessary thoughts/feelings causes performative utterance to fail
-          Hamlet knows he cannot determine fate, brings peace
-          Evolution Hamlet undertakes is only one of closure and acceptance
-          “man who uses that performative power in the unending task of the realization of the self” ; not to perform actions
-          Just as he is dying he realizes this