Hamlet displays fascination at the player’s ability to induce in themselves emotion over matters that mean nothing to them.
“But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit”
Hamlet’s self criticism is obvious within the soliloquy. He compares himself to the actors and finds himself to be lacking. If they can be so moved by a fiction how much more moved should he be to kill his uncle?
“What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,…..
“unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn'd defeat was made.”
Hamlet examines the effect of conscience on his inaction. He explains the suffering that it causes him, and delivers some nasty imagery as to what he “should” have done.
“Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the throat,
As deep as to the lungs? who does me this?”
“I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal”
Hamlet then concludes that,
“the play’s the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.”
I would like to look at the importance of acting and conscience in the play and how this soliloquy relates to these themes.
Firstly to the acting, Claudius had acted the good guy from before the outset of the play, throughout there are references to seeming and being.
“Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not 'seems.'”
“If it assume my noble father's person,,br />I'll speak to it,”
“I am but mad north, north west”
It seems appropriate then that acting itself should be enveloped into this metaphor. Hamlet says
“For they are actions that a man might play:
But I have that within which passeth show;
These but the trappings and the suits of woe”
Whilst this is likely true, Hamlet does, arguably, feign madness. He also pretends to be ignorant when the king asks of the play “Is there no offence in it?”. Indeed he is never more at home than when with his player friends. Hamlet then, finds the players admirable, not because of the ability they have to deceive but rather when he says
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
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 wann'd,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!
it is out of admiration of their will power and seeming control over their emotions, “monstrous” here refers not to any deception on the part of the players but to Hamlet’s own inability to act out his revenge or even to feel vengeful.
It is this control over ones actions that Hamlet finds lacking in himself. He asks
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have?
Even this though, seems like a recession from his original
Haste me to know't, that I, with wings as swift
As meditation or the thoughts of love,
May sweep to my revenge.
(Act I)
If it is indeed, that Hamlet admires the players’ ability to induce an emotion in themselves and, in that way, to feel it then this seems like a shift in his plans. He is no longer driven by a want to avenge his father’s murder but rather a sense that he should feel so as a player should feel the emotions of their character. In short this soliloquy indicates a shift in Hamlet wanting to kill Claudius to him seeing it as a duty.
And so to conscience. Hamlet says of himself
say nothing; no, not for a king,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the throat,
As deep as to the lungs? who does me this?
Here is clear evidence that Hamlet is suffering the effects of hesitation and procrastination, the pricks of guilt. It is this same emotion that he wishes to make use of in Claudius when he says
“That guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaim'd their malefactions;
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ.”
The “organ” here is conscience. Perhaps then there is another aspect to Hamlet’s admiration of the players, they are free of conscience. Hamlet’s dilemma here is similar to Othello’s when he says
“When I have pluck'd the rose,
I cannot give it vital growth again”
Hamlet is haunted by the possibility that he may have been led astray and he is afraid that he may commit a grave injustice.
“if he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape”
This permanency contrasts heavily with how he views the players at the beginning of his speech when he rightly points out that the characters the players play have no ties with their consciences.
“What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her?”So the importance of the soliloquy is two fold. Firstly and most obviously Hamlet admires the actors’ control over their emotions and ability to display them. That he wishes he had the magnitude of acting abilities as the players signals a turning point for the play. Hamlet begins to look on his killing Claudius as a duty instead of a want. Secondly the players hint at the idea of conscience and the irreversibility of actions. What is done cannot be undone, except with in the confines of a play where a player may play as he wishes outside of the curse of conscience or consequences. Hamlet plans to use this contrast in his plans, emphasising it further.