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Soliloquy
Explanation and Analysis—Murder's Tongue:
Act 2, Scene 2 ends in a soliloquy from Hamlet in which he vows to use the players to find out whether his uncle is guilty. He berates himself for his previous inactivity and feels a sense of guilt, as though he has been a bad son for feeling unable to kill or confront his uncle. He runs over the plan in his mind and convinces himself that it will give him the opportunity to ascertain whether his uncle committed the deed he has been accused of. Using the players is the best way to do this, Hamlet says: "For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak / With most miraculous organ."
In this speech, Hamlet personifies murder by describing it as tongueless. Even though murder doesn’t have a tongue, Hamlet is convinced that murder will speak. He is convinced that if he puts on the play, he will give murder itself the agency to act through the players. If the players reenact the murderous act, Hamlet believes that murder will speak its truth and reveal the king’s misdeeds. Personifying murder this way helps communicate Hamlet’s obsession with the violence that predates the play’s plot. Through his speech, Hamlet is making murder out to be a character with agency and affect. His personification of murder gives it more power and lets it loom large in the audience’s imagination. It also makes it clear that Hamlet feels powerless against the larger forces at work, that he sees murder as a power separate from his uncle as an individual actor. His attitude and fearfulness are informed by this belief.
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