Hamlet's Plan

I've decided to blog about the section of Act II I paraphrased. I was given Hamlet's monologue in scene ii on page 71 (lines 563-615). After Hamlet sees the player's performance he has his own idea for Claudius. He asks the player if he can act out a play called "The Murder of Gonzago" which plays similar to the death of his own father. In his monologue, you can tell the passion he has as he expresses his reaction to the player's performance. However he doesn't have the power to express his own passion as the player does as he says, "Is it not monstrous that this player, 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's aspect, a broken voice, and his whole function suiting with forms to his conceit?" He only wishes to express his feelings while an actor expressing fiction can do it better. As he explains how the player might act out his feelings with words like drown the stage, horrid speech, and make mad the guilty the reader can only imagine how much passion he has inside. With this in mind and his father's unavenged death he uses the "Murder of Gonzago" to catch Claudius in his conscience. With the similarity to the death of the late Hamlet's, Hamlet hopes that Claudius will show a guilty face during the premiere during the play.
The best part of this monologue is the ending when Hamlet says, "The spirit that I have seen may be the devil; and the devil hath power t' assume a pleasing shape." He fears that Claudius may not have a reaction at all and calls it the power of the devil.
I ask myself: Is he really out of his mind or does he have too much bottled up that he just needs to get out?


Well, if anyone's interested my paraphrased monologue is below:


Ah, alone at last
I’m such a scoundrel!
Isn’t terrifying that that player,
Acts only in fiction, but with so much passion?
How can he exert how he wants to feel
With tears, a chocked up voice, and body language,
If that is not how he truly feels? And all for nothing!
For Hecuba!
What Hecuba to him?
Or he to Hecuba, that he cried over her?
How would he REALLY feel if he had a true reason to
And the passion that I have?
He would soak the floor with his tears,
And draw the crowd’s ear with his horrid voice,
Make the guilty go crazy, and shock the free
Perplex the ignorant, and amaze, indeed,
Very pair of eyes and ears.
Only I, a dull-spirited rascal, peak,
Like a day dreamer, inactive of my cause,
And says nothing; no, not for a king whose property
A damned defeat was made. Am I a coward?

Who calls me the bad guy?
Breaks my pate across?
And plucks off the hairs on my beard and blows it right back in my face?
Yanks me by the nose? And lies through their teeth?
Who does this to me?
Ha!

Goddammit I should take it; cause I cannot
Take matters in my own hands; I should have feed all the vultures with this slave's corpse: bloody villain!
Remorseless, inconsiderate villain!
Vengence!
What an ass I am! I should be brave
I am the son of my dear murdered father.
I will prompt my revenge by heaven and hell,
Poor my heart out with words with a curse.
A scullion!

Guilty animals sitting at a play would be struck through the soul and physically react to cunningness of a scene ;
Though he will not admit murder he will speak with his reaction.
I’ll have these actors act out something similar to my father’s death to my uncle:
I will observe his reaction and take it from there.
I may see the spirit of the devil: who has the power to act differently than expected
And possibly out of weakness and with his “powers” might damn me to the truth: I’ll have more evidence than this: this is where I’ll catch his conscience.