Hamlet 4

Hamlet identifies his low self-esteem and low self worth when he compares himself to one of the actors. After the actor has preformed a deeply emotional speech, Hamlet remarks,

Oh, 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 wanned,/ Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect,/ A broken voice, and his whole function suiting/ With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing—[...]Yet I,/ A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak/ Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,/ And can say nothing (II.ii.509-528)

Hamlet feels as if he has not done enough to mourn and avenge his father. He believes that the actor has shown more emotion in a fictional display than Hamlet is capable of truely expressing. The melancholy outlook on his own life is a foreboding sign of Hamlets future; he feels inadequacy even in sadness. The deep hopelessness felt by Hamlet continues to fuel Hamlet's isolation from the real world. He is failing to honor the one task that the Ghost (the last connection to his father) asked of him. This failure to take action further progresses his depression.