t is present here is what Hamlet struggles with until very near the end. He is then moved to swear that he should kill Claudius when he says, " I should have fatted all the region kites With this slave is off. Bloody bawdy Villain O, vengeance! Why, what an ass am I?' (2.2.581-585) He makes this big buildup of what he should have done and how he will be revenged and he shoots it down in the next line. This passage is the model of Hamlet's cognitive dissonance. After all of this swearing and support of the value of acting and words, he backs out of it again. He can't decide whether or not to play the role. Words are further condemned when he says, "Must, like a whore, unpack my hart with Words" (2.2.587). So, he is now condemning role-playing. Being caught in the middle, he decides that he needs more proof of the Kings guilt when he says, "The play is the thing / Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King" (2.2.606-607). Before the mousetrap is to be played, Hamlet runs into Ophelia and makes some telling statements. Upon the issue of Ophelia's beauty, Hamlet says, "That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty" (3.1.109-110). He is saying that Ophelia can be honest and fair, but that, honesty being an inward trait, and fairness being an outward trait, cannot be linked. He goes on further to say that, "Ay, truly, for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd that the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness" (3.1.13-15) So not only can the inner and outer self not be linked, but acting, or the show or exterior, will transform one's inner self to match the exterior show. He says this just after denying that words and acting are important. By what he says here, if he would only act the part he wouldn't have a problem taking action. Then, he contradicts himself, yet again, when he says "God hath given you one face, and you go make yourselves Anothe...
