Hamet help please?

Question

In hamlet's soliloquy at 2.2.567, why does he seem so angry with himself?

What evidence is there that he is torn between actions and words?

What does Hamlet say in that speech about why he's angry at himself? What does he say about words? What action does he say that he should be taking? (A hint -- "kites" in this speech are not children's toys, but birds that feed on carrion.) Who is he talking about when he says "this slave" and "Bloody, bawdy villain!" Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindles villain!"? What does he think he should be doing to that person? How does he feel about himself for not doing it?

im not asking to have all these questions answered but a couple here and there would be wonderful and thank alot!!!!

Answer 1

First of all you need to know the whole play before you can pick apart a soliloquy.

Hamlet left for college and attended with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (by the way if you love theatre I suggest you rent "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" with Gary Oldman, Tim Roth, and Richard Dreyfuss funny take on Hamlet from their point of view in the existential style of "I Heart Huccabees"

Anyway back to the play. Hamlet comes back from college to learn that his father is dead and his mother remarried his uncle (the father's brother). He is visited by an appariition that claims to be Hamlet's father. The ghost tells him that he was murdered by the uncle.

Conflicted Hamlet's first instinct is to exact immediate revenge, however since his uncle is now King with young Hamlet's father out of the way Hamlet must devise a plan so that the truth is known and he will not just be seen as a young power hungry misguided youth.

With the burden of this information and distractions of love tempered with his sence of duty and desire for revenge in his father and family's name, Hamlet's behaviour and mood swings seem erratic and unpredictable to everyone else.

He happens across a troop of "players" (a traveling acting troop) and in a classic Shakespeare literary device puts on 'a play within a play' in which he means to expose his uncle and mother's treachery.

He is angry with himself because he is getting sick of putting up the false front of not knowing what really happened to his father. (Imagine living in the same house as somone who murdered your father and acting as if you didn't know when you are eating dinner together)

As far as action and words, in his bit about the Greek queen Hecuba ( mother of Hector of Troy * Homer's "Illiad" ) he aknowledges his desire to implicate the villan (his uncle and now King), however understanding the position he has put himself in with his strange actions of late, coupled with people seeing him seemlingly tak to himself, when infact he is speaking with his father's ghost, add to that the reality that he is caught up in a conspiricy that isnt even fully aware of itself (ie. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern's part of it where they try to take Hamlet to a foreign court (i forget where) to be killed for treason (if i recall correctly).

You are correct a kite is a bird of prey. Not a large one, but bit enough to kill small birds and rodents. In the 16th century I think the gall was thought to be the seat of courage and the liver & spleen thought to represent where the soul resided. Now a days instead of saying gall we say "guts" ( ie. he doenst have the guts ) and liver and spleen is more attatched to what we think of as heart (ie. he has a lot of heart ).

The passion inside Hamlet that drives him, urges him on to revenge. I think "the slave" is the king and the bawdy, remorseless, lecherous, kindless, bloody, etc... villian is ment to refer to his mother because Shaksepeare in the next few lines makes reference to being like a whore... the text was specifically crafted this way to reinforce the worishness... bawd, lecherous... etc...

Hope this helps

*edit* here is a copy of the soliloquy...

HAMLET Ay, so, God be wi' ye;

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]

Now I am alone.
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
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!
For Hecuba!
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? 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,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams, 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. 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?
Ha!
'Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal: bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
O, vengeance!
Why, what an *** am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,
A scullion!
Fie upon't! foh! About, my brain! I have heard
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. I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick: 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; yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds
More relative than this: the play 's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

[Exit]

Answer 2

When you first posted your question, I posted this response, which you now seem to have incorporated into your question (except that you changed Shakespeare's "kindless" to "kindles"):

What does Hamlet say in that speech about why he's angry at himself? What does he say about words? What action does he say that he should be taking? (A hint -- "kites" in this speech are not children's toys, but birds that feed on carrion.) Who is he talking about when he says "this slave" and "Bloody, bawdy villain!" Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!"? What does he think he should be doing to that person? How does he feel about himself for not doing it?

I was not offering to answer any of my questions for you, nor suggesting that anybody else should answer them for you. I was saying that if you read Hamlet's speech with my questions in mind, you will discover the answer to your original question.

Answer 3

Can you post the soliloquy here? I will help you.