THE PERFORMATIVE UTTERANCE IN HAMLET

- Hamlet could be described less about a man who could not make up his mind, and more about a man who couldn't carry through this the ideas in his mind.
-There are three main forces of language:
the locutionary force, theability of language to deliver a message, the force of mutual intelligibility; the illocutionary force, what is done in being said, such as denying a request, giving an order, etc.; the perlocutionary force, what is achieved by being said, the consequences of one's utterance, such as an order being followed (or refused)
-Performative utterances create new facts in the world in speaking. ( They influence more then just describing)
- "Self-overhearing": Gaining knowledge of yourself by overhearing what you say. Can be act of self-revelation or self- creation (There is already something there vs. not)
- Hamlet does not, so it seems, or realize that his words can affect the world.
- In once scene Hamlet and Macrellus & Horatio make an oath.
" Once someone has made an utterance of the type "I swear," the illocutionary force of an oathhaving been made exists in the world. What the person is tasked to do concerns the perlocutionary force."
" If the person who has sworn to do something does that something, that is a perlocutionary effect of his utterance; the illocutionary force of having sworn has compelled himto that action." 
In this scene though Hamlet only swears to remember how his father's unfair death came, and the others only make a promise of secrecy.
- The emotional utterances in Hamlet that prove to be not real oaths are a real problem in the play, especially if the audience tends to believe their authenticity
- You can gather from Hamlet's instructions towards the players about over-acting what he finds realistic as shows as emotion. (Not crazy hand gestures of awkward movement, need to speak in a naturalistic style). Those are what Hamlet is trying to avoid when he is feigning madness. He does not want to overact but not underact.
- Polonius falls for Hamlet's act because he thinks he is too wise to be fooled, and is therefore easily fooled. He also wants to come up with some kind of legit explanation for the way Hamlet is acting, and when he is approached with the idea that is is craziness due to love, he grabs on to it and accepts it as true.
- Hamlet in a way uses his feigned madness to learn more about himself and the society that he has grown up in that was shattered by his father's murder. He even thinks of going to the final level of form, suicide.

-Can't actual "condemn" anyone in a play because it is only a play, making all utterances performative.
- Hamlet is moved by words, like Player 1's
- Difficult because there is double acting going on
- Hamlet is caught in trying to understand his and everyone's role in life by "playing" a role instead of being it
- Hamlet's favorite role was "avenging son" but in the end he finds that the death of an avenging son is not any more noble than the death of the beggar, and that violence does not make the life worth living