Theatre and language in Hamlet's soliloquies The first sheet is preceded by an address to the reader to "read it again and again". In terms of words and action, Hamlet is the play most aware of its theatricality. and the actions during the play are inextricably linked, as is the concept of "playing" a part. From the beginning of the play we see evidence of the external spectacle compared to the underlying reality. In the first act, Hamlet's speech to Gertrude (No it seems...etc) shows us the prince talking about the actions a man "might do" and also about what is "inside" him and which "goes unnoticed". (NB "Action" in the Elizabethan definition meant "acting") Throughout the play we see the inner reality beneath the superficial interpretations of not only Hamlet, but also other characters. Hamlet only has "jokes" at the beginning of the play until we hear his first soliloquy, which is an attempt to look at "what is within, which passes through the play." Soliloquies create a bond between the character and the audience and were a dramatic convention inherited from Greek drama. By Shakespeare's time they had moved away from commentaries on the plot and events of the play and had become illustrative of the character's inner thoughts. In the soliloquy the character tells the truth as he perceives it, although the "truth" is subjective and can have different meanings for different characters. In Hamlet we have seven soliloquies, five major and two minor, and Hamlet's character is revealed through them as the play progresses. Hazlitt - "This is that Hamlet the Dane... whom we remember... but whose thoughts we know all as well as our own... Reality is in the mind of the reader... It is we who are Ham.. .in the center of the card… so to the grave. Hamlet describes himself as “Crawling between earth and heaven.” Shakespeare's audience would have had a physical image of this before them, which added great weight to the imagery of his text, as obviously would be the fight over Ophelia's corpse. At the end of the play Hamlet stops reflecting and the language becomes very direct and simple, "there is a deity.." "promptness is everything. ". In the final scene Hamlet "acts" in every sense of the word, and the "theatre" takes over. The final speeches are concise and contain references to the theatricality of the occasion. refers to the "silent" (extras on stage) and to the "audience of this act" he orders it to be "brought onto the stage", perhaps a final comment on a play characterized so much by actors acting for actors in a sort of Chinese box puzzle of external spectacle and secrets. interior..