"Performative Utterance" Notes

Notes:
-Hamlet often viewed as a kid who can't make up his mind, when really we should consider it a play about a man who could not make real what was found in his mind.
-Hamlet is trapped within his knowledge/understanding and unable to move/act convinced of his duty and yet unable to move that duty from mental to real.
-Shakespeare's character's reveal themselves to the audience through speeches, soliloquies, etc. These "self overhearing" moments paint a picture of the character's thoughts and relay them to the outside.
-One important utterance being between hamlet and his father's ghost. They create a "promise/oath" set into the world. Whether Hamlet acts on this oath that exists in the world is concerned with a "perlocutionary force" -Requires action in simpler words.
-So whats the problem?!- Hamlet does NOT swear to avenge his father if you read closely. Hamlet swears to remember, not necessarily to act.
-Hamlet's utterances actually teach him a lot about himself, not just the audience.
-Consider the interaction between the first player and Hamlet. What moves Hamlet is verbal/emotional action not physical displaying his mourning for his father/mother
-All these utterances such as "I mourn", "I promise", etc. establish a connection between language and emotion.
-From here, we connect emotions to belief-An important distinction.
-It can be said that the main problem in the story is that it's characters represent their feelings/intentions in ways that contradict reality.
-Consider This: Hamlet's madness designed to hide his murderous intent, to cover his uncle's crime, and then to punish him. -Unrealistic right?
-Hamlet tells the actors (acting out the play-within-a-play) to not over exaggerate and to speak naturalistic. This makes the situation delicate. Hamlet doesn't want to over do it and make it obvious that it is a sham/comic. "Hold a mirror up to nature.."
-what difference does Hamlet's madness have to actual madness? It comes back to "pretending." To pretend you can't follow through with what you said you were going to do. In Hamlet's case, he's pretending to go through the motions in the play, but no one actually knows his real intentions/what he's "really" doing... murder.
-He's convinced Polonious of his "fake" madness.
-Hamlet has gone so mad, that he now hopes to find himself within his own madness. along the way of his self exploration, he considered suicide as it is the only true way of formless self.
-There's a line between emotional and moral realities.
-Summary: After all the bloodshed at the conclusion of the play, Hamlet's evolution reached"action" but rather to "faith, closure, and acceptance." Hamlet's utterances didn't contribute to him taking action, but rather shaped him. He opened his eyes to self realization. Powerful in the mind, but mercy to those around him that actually do take action. Hamlet finally grapes rarity, letting go of his mental/feelings/emotion etc.bringing his understanding of himself as well as everything else to completion as well as his life to an end.

Document Link: http://www.academia.edu/383737/The_Performative_Utterance_in_Hamlet