The Performative Utterance provides an interesting lens to view the work of Shakespeare’s Hamlet under. Contrary to ancient notions, the ideas surrounding the theories of the Performative Utterance claim language has the power to make change and create facts in reality rather than being restricted to merely describing said reality. Such a concept allows the perception of language creating a substantial impact on the events in Hamlet. Language acquires such agency through the forces of the locutionary (pertaining to the message or point being delivered through a locution), the perlocutionary (the consequences and results of said locution) and the illocutionary (the force that drives such perlocutionary results). When the power of language is dissected as such, it’s applications to the text of Hamlet provides interesting insight to the course of plot lines and character developments.
Hamlet himself when analyzed with the performative utterance in mind conveys a fairly consistent locutionary message of avenging his father’s murder. That being said however, the illocutionary force to create such intent into a reality remains absent for the majority of the play. When seen from this angle, Hamlet is seen as rather than the tale of a man who could not make up his mind, but as the tale of a man who could not make what was in his mind into a reality. This however sets up Hamlet’s character arc and createds the dynamic element of Hamlet being a man who through the course of the play must overcome his tragic flaw of being unable to generate absolutely no illocutionary force; zilch, from such ample rhetorical prowess. One way to explain the evolution of Hamlet’s character arc is through a concept of informational processing and reasoning known as “self-overhearing”.
Bloom’s theory of self-overhearing can be described as gaining self-knowledge and/or understanding through the act of hearing one’s own utterances; generally talking yourself through concepts and information so you can understand them. Relating to Hamlet, it can be said that beyond the theatric practicalities of the characters’ soliloquies, in the hypothetical worlds of Shakespeare’s soliloquies (currently Hamlet in specific), characters develop through the self-overhearing of their own utterances in a similar fashion to how you or I would mull over a subject in hopes of clearer understanding. Hamlet over the span of the play manages to develop into a character which can fulfill his quest for vengeance and it can be theorized that the concept of self-overhearing could be the cause that lead to the consummating effect.
Through the act of self-overhearing, the question still arises, “Has Hamlet merely had a self-revelation, discovering what was always there?” If so, this statement would imply Hamlet has always been able to generate the illocutionary force necessary to form physical, factual, perlocutionary results, he merely had uncovered his innate ability. An Aristotelian view of a “true-self” aligns its self rather nicely with the hypothesis of Dostoyevsky’s Raskolnikov; some people are naturally capable of or even have the right to commit murder. From the view point of Raskolnikov the question could be asked “Is Hamlet a natural born killer?” Hamlet’s rash killing of Polonius could support the claim. Also is Claudius, like the pawnbroker, a being whose true self is so unworthy that his murder could be viewed as completely justifiable? When Claudius is seen simply “going through the motions” of prayer, this supports the notion of a true-self, Claudius’ being so debauched he cannot conduct even a simple prayer. When applied to one’s own self, the notion of self-overhearing, although somewhat superfluous in the real world, uncovering the person you’ve always been is a ball game played in the field of the philosophical. A I’ve mentioned above, the physical act of self-overhearing, while applicable and possibly beneficial to some, isn’t necessary in a world where our inner most thoughts need no to be broadcasted to an audience, the locutionary force necessary to drive perlocutionary results, however the general concept of Aristotle’s true-self allows us to individuate ourselves by asking the same questions we ask of Hamlet, “Am I a natural born killer?” Although currently I am confident I am not, there’s nothing to stop me from discovering later that I’ve always been a fratricidal psychopath.
Self-overhearing however also presents a completely contrasting angle to view Hamlet in which through the knowledge he gains through hearing his own utterances, Hamlet self-fashions, self-individuates his own self. Rather than discovering a revenge driven Hamlet that has always existed, he creates one. The perlocutionary consequences of self-overhearing are the development of a Hamlet which is capable of making impulse into a reality. Ironically this relatively modern view compared to the “true-self” model supports the more traditional view of Hamlet as an indecisive man in that it takes a culmination of events for Hamlet to reach fulfillment. The fluidity of the concept in comparison to the unswaying rigidness of the “true-self” model is an appealing trait in a world where everybody wants to be their own master; the idea that your own state of being is malleable, being formed and reformed like clay as a reactive or adaptive consequence of just being alive and therefore submitted to the events and locutionary and illocutionary forces conjured in life.
Language having agency to make fact in the world creates yet another angle to view how language and subsequently self-overhearing creates impact in the hypothetical world of Hamlet and raises philosophical insights into the worlds of our own.
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