Hamlet Act 3 Scene 2 Soliloquy Analysis

In the beginning of Act 3 Scene 2. Hamlet is speaking to the actors of the play that is about to be performed before Claudius, Gertrude, and the rest of the royal court. His style of speech is different than when he is being watched by Polonius and/or Claudius because he is speaking in clear prose, making sure he’s understood by the players. Because of this shift it’s clear that Hamlet hasn’t actually become mad because of his encounter with the ghost, but rather he’s been acting as he said. In the first lines of the scene it’s reaffirmed that Hamlet is a skilled actor, showing that he’d have the ability to convince everyone that he’s crazy. He instructs the players to “Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue.” Not only has

We know the weight that the success of this play carries because he calls anyone who merely adds a line for a cheap laugh “villainous and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it” because it would take away from the focus of the “necessary question of the play.” It’s so important that the audience perceives that question that the play raises that Hamlet also says that he’d “have such a fellow whipped for o’erdoing Termagant.” Even though this isn’t a character in the play the point is that if the players go overboard with their acting then Hamlet would go so far as being incited to physical violence, foreshadowing the violence that is coming. Hamlet likens over acting to a storm, a “torrent, tempest, and (as I might say) a whirlwind of your passion” which would be disastrous and even destructive to his plan. Hamlet’s explanation of how he wants the play to be performed reveals a recurring theme in the conversation between the director and the players. This is the idea that the theatre is meant to reflect the nature of