Act 2 Scene 2 mini essay

Léa Diouf
Terminale L

English mini-essay

« Act 2 Scene 2 seems all over the place ; it moves in contrary directions and lacks cohesion ; then at the end it all comes together, and everything which has gone before shows itself to be relevant » How far do you agree with this statement ?

Hamlet’s Act 2 Scene 2 is, by far, the longest scene in the play as it provides a chaotic accumulation of events that mirrors Hamlet’s disintegrating mind, a stagnating plot before Hamlet’s soliloquy that allows the plot to evolve. This statement is backed up with the intervention of new characters, the occupation of space onstage, use of words, different consonants, alliteration and the length of the each situation.
The actors’ entrances and exits introduce new characters and allow the audience to distinguish one situation from another. As such, the scene can be cut into 5 parts: Polonius talking to King Claudius and Queen Gertrude; Hamlet’s conversation with Polonius; his reunion with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern; his meeting with the Players and his soliloquy. With the appearance of new characters like Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Voltimand, Cornelius and the Players, the stage seems more occupied and busy thus adding onto this chaotic ambience. Once Hamlet is alone onstage, the scene suddenly shifts to a more visually powerful and clearer situation, letting his words take over the stage.

Shakespeare uses the length of the lines to stagnate the plot and creates suspense as the audience is still waiting for Hamlet’s revenge plot to take form. This stagnation is seen through this length, as seen, for example, in Polonius’s exchange with Queen Gertrude who asks to use “More matter, with less art” in which Polonius ironically responds “Madam, I use no art”, then begins to doubletalk himself into meaningless by saying “That he is mad, ‘tis true: ‘tis true ‘tis pity/And pity ‘tis true”. Another example can be observed with Hamlet responding “Words, words, words” to Polonius. The use of repetition and alliteration in “w” can illustrate Hamlet saying that even though he cherishes words (e.g. him entering the scene while reading a book and his long soliloquy) it isn’t enough to deal with the interior crisis he is constantly feeling, later observed at the end of the scene. The length of Hamlet’s soliloquy underlines a tragic flaw as Hamlet shows how he is capable of speaking his deepest emotions out loud but rarely takes into action.
Hamlet’s soliloquy concludes the Act and mirrors with his increasing madness as it illustrates different façades of him. While the audience first sees him as an insensitive manipulator towards Ophelia (Act 1 Scene 3), his love letter, in Act 2 scene 2, presents him in a more romantic, non-ironic and sincere aspect as seen when he addresses Ophelia as “celestial”, “my soul’s idol”, “most beautified”,” O dear Ophelia” and repeats “I love thee” twice. In this soliloquy, Shakespeare uses hard consonants, alliterations (“damn’d, defeat”; “bloody, bawdy”; “What’s Hecuba to him, or he to her?) and single burst-ideas to reveal Hamlet’s internal and chaotic conflict. Occasionally, the audience can notice how emotional and agitated Hamlet is when he loses his words, as seen with the syllable break “Ha!” thus building his anger towards Claudius in the next few lines, insulting him as a “Bloody, bawdy villain!”. When Hamlet starts to over-analyze by wondering if “The spirit that I have seen/May be a devil”, he illustrates how he tends to over-think and be a bit paranoid about situations since he believed that if the Ghost is the devil, he may be easily manipulated by it.
Once Hamlet realizes that people are emotionally connected to art (in that case, a play), his soliloquy now serves as a new impetuous to move the plot forwards. He believes that “guilty creatures sitting at a play/ Have (…) been struck so to the soul that presently/ They have proclaim'd their malefactions”: since he felt guilt by watching the First Player, he believes he can invoke this guilt on Claudius as proof that he really did kill his father. From there, Hamlet elaborates a clear, constructed plan to trap his uncle. If this section was cut, for example, the plot would never have moved on and would’ve remained in conflict and chaos, just like Hamlet’ state of mind. These facades bring the audience to ask themselves: is Hamlet truly mad or he is pretending?

In conclusion, this chaotic scene shows itself to be, indeed, relevant in the end as it is a manner to get an insight about Hamlet’s disintegrating mind, his tragic flaw of being able to speak out his feelings but not taking action and his revenge plot being triggered by these words and accumulation of events.