Hamlet Essay

Words are how we are able to communicate from one another complex or abstract ideas to those around us.  We say words to tell people what we are going to do, and because we do this, saying something becomes the first step of doing something.  The more we say that we are going to do something, the more people believe that you are going to do that thing, giving a greater obligation to do something.  In William Shakespeare’s masterpiece Hamlet, the character’s actions, and thus the plot are all driven by this act of performative utterance, making them extremely human.  

In the play, the character of Hamlet is always using performative utterance to portray what he intends to do.  Weather it is to Horatio, to his family, or to himself, saying things truly makes Hamlet’s future actions concrete.  These declarations of future actions serve many purposes.  First, they allow the audience to know what is to come, setting up many instances of dramatic irony when put side by side with other character’s performative utterances.  One example of this is when Hamlet vows to kill Claudius to avenge his father, yet Claudius and Laertes plan to poison Hamlet during a duel.   Hamlet’s utterances make him feel obligated to do what he says he will, thus making them drive the plot, as Hamlet is driven to do what he says he will.  When he says that he will have to avenge his father, nothing stops him, from being put down, to being shipped off to England.  

These performative utterances also make the characters of the play seem very human.  Hamlet especially feels very human, because humans do this.  As humans, we are constantly declaring that we are going to do something before we do it.  It gives us the social pressure we need to do something.  If everybody knows that we have the intention of doing something, we feel that it will make us untrustworthy if we do not do it, so we do it.  If you tell somebody that you are going to do the talent show, and you do not, you feel that you are viewed as untrustworthy.  This is shown in It’s a Wonderful Life when George Bailey tells everybody that he is going to “wipe the dust of this little town off my feet and see the world!”  Because he does not, he feels like he is a failure in life and wishes that he was never born.  This is why performative utterance is such a human thing, and why it is so human that Hamlet uses it.