Emmanuel Adegboyega

Mr. Freitas

ENG4UP-02

March 9 2021

The Process of Actualization

The key to provoking action in man are precepts. Without precepts, man cannot take action. So, what are precepts? Well, for the purposes of this essay, precepts are simply thoughts or behaviour regulators. In other words, precepts are a set of ideas that yields or reproduces a specific idea or thought pattern in an individual. Words are carriers of precepts. Words then put together become information or a body of knowledge. Therefore, precepts are dispensed through information. Information can either be passed on through verbal communication or writings. In William Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, precepts are exactly what Hamlet’s father brought to him through the avenue of communication. Precepts are very powerful as they can influence someone’s course of actions, thoughts, and behaviour. However, precepts remain merely infertile ideas if they do not go through the process of actualization. It is man’s nature to go through three main stages before acting on any new idea or body of information. In Hamlet, the play’s protagonist goes through these three stages as we see Hamlet contemplate, believe, become and eventually act on the precept that his father’s ghost had introduced to him.

Humans are the only species on earth with a profound ability to think. For centuries now, humans have been thinking and we do not seem to show any signs of stopping soon. This is because it is our intrinsic nature to think. The very first stage in the process of actualization revolves all around man’s ability to use the mind to think and reason. As humans, we often spend a large amount of time in this stage because we have a high propensity to overthink. In Shakespeare's play, we see Hamlet exhibit all of these characteristics that are very common to man as he tries to fathom what he is obligated to do concerning the shocking truth his father’s ghost had revealed to him. Few weeks after Hamlet has been presented with a precept by his father, we see how that information coerced Hamlet into a specific state of mind and behavioural patterns as Ophelia tries to expound about her encounter with Hamlet to her father:

My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,

Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbrac'd,

No hat upon his head, his stockings foul'd,

Ungart'red, and down-gyved to his ankle;

Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other,

And with a look so piteous in purport

As if he had been loosed out of hell

To speak of horrors- he comes before me. (Shakespeare 2.1 1034-1041)

Hamlet had patently been contemplating on what the ghost had revealed to him and he is now in a deep pit in his mind trying to find a way out by visiting Ophelia. Later on in the play, we enter into Hamlet’s mind through his soliloquy in act two as he compares his inability to act to the actors’ exactitude in their script execution. At this point, taking revenge is all that is predominantly on Hamlet’s mind and his inaction is eating him up on the inside; “Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave, That I, the son of a dear father murdered, Prompted to my revenge … Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words And fall a-cursing like a very drab, A scullion! Fie upon ’t, foh!” (Shakespeare 2.2 1658-1663). It is evident that Hamlet has now begun to overthink. Overthinking led Hamlet to make one of the most popular quotes in the history of literature. Hamlet finds himself stuck on contemplating everything including life as he asks in his soliloquy, “To be, or not to be?” (Shakespeare 3.1 1749). Hamlet is stuck in a predicament where he’s unable to advance to acting on the information he now possesses due to overthinking, while also knowing he cannot revert to his previous self.  

        Beliefs are a very powerful system in the life of any man. Belief systems are as powerful as they are because beliefs are ideas or principles that an individual, after consideration or contemplation, has a very strong conviction about and has come to accept to be true. A man cannot act beyond his beliefs. This is why once a man decides to actualize an idea, it must first become a belief. In Hamlet’s quest to actualize his father’s instructions to take revenge, he comes to a realization that he has not been able to act as a result of a weak internal conviction. Hamlet’s wavering belief is revealed in his statement:

The spirit that I have seen

May be the devil, and the devil hath power

T' assume a pleasing shape. Yea, and perhaps

Out of my weakness and my melancholy,

As he is very potent with such spirits,

Abuses me to damn me. (Shakespeare 2.2 1673-1678)

 Hamlet knows that he cannot avenge his father’s death until he has a stronger conviction that Claudius indeed killed his father, so he devises a plan. Hamlet needs better evidence than the ghost to work with so he says “the play’s the thing Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.” (Shakespeare 2.2 1679-1680). Hamlet uses the play he had told the actors to perform as a tool to acquire better grounds to help strengthen his conviction and avenge his father’s death. The play took Hamlet from the domain of contemplating and overthinking everything into the second stage in the process of actualization. After the play, Hamlet says to Horatio “O good Horatio, I’ll take the ghost’s word for a thousand pound. Didst perceive?” (Shakespeare 3.2 2173-2174). This statement reveals to us that Hamlet no longer sees Claudius' wrongdoing as just something the ghost told him but instead he sees it as the ultimate truth. Hamlet is now fully convinced and believes that Claudius killed his father. Though Hamlet now believes, it is not enough to cause him to kill Claudius; he must become.

        As humans, our beliefs are what make us who we are. If an idea or principle becomes a belief, it is only a matter of time before that belief finds expression. For instance, if someone believes it is okay to steal, it is only a matter of time before the person begins to steal. In essence, a belief requires time to transform the values, perspective, and mindset of an individual before it then finds expression. This is exactly why if Hamlet does not become someone who can take a person's life through the process of transformation, he will still not be able to kill Claudius. In the bible, it states that faith without action is dead. This alludes to the fact that a belief, though it is already someone’s truth, is useless or ‘dead’ if it does not carry the power to transform and cause the individual to act a specific way. A Christian man can believe that it is wrong to commit fornication, but if he is not transformed internally so that his mindset and values align with that belief, he will not be able to act according to that belief. This is exactly why as humans we must first become before we can take any action. Becoming is a process of transformation and a paradigm shift. Without this final process of becoming we simply cannot act on our beliefs. “And now I’ll do ’t … No. Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent.” (Shakespeare 3.3 2356-2370). Here we see Hamlet try to skip the stage of becoming and try to kill Claudius immediately after believing what his father’s ghost told him, but his beliefs as a Christian resisted him because he had not yet become a murderer. Beliefs aim to find expression as soon as possible and they use emotions for this cause. Emotions are like a catalyst through which beliefs become actions. Beliefs have a mysterious way of finding expression in the midst of emotional outbursts. Hamlet’s belief that he must kill Claudius found expression during the intense emotional exchange Hamlet was having with his mother which compelled Hamlet to kill Polonius without even knowing who was behind the arras. This murderous act is evidently related to the belief that Claudius must be killed because we see Hamlet ask right after his action, “Is it the king?” (Shakespeare 3.4 2414), in hopes that he had killed Claudius. In the final scenes of the play, after Hamlet had returned to Denmark, we see him finally act on his belief that he must avenge his father’s death. Spending time away from Denmark has allowed Hamlet’s belief to transform him into someone capable of killing. Hamlet finds out his mother is dead and is filled with emotions which are avenues for his belief to find expression once again. Hamlet’s transformation to someone capable of murder accompanied with knowing that “the king’s to blame”(Shakespeare 5.2 3976-3977) for his mother’s death, he was able to finally take action and kill Claudius.  

        The process of actualization is one of the key reasons why humans are very complex beings. The actions we take are merely the ultimate end of a multidimensional process. We have all heard the phrase “actions speak louder than words”, but I don’t think people actually understand what this truly means. Actions are the product of a process and words which are carriers of precepts are the initiators of that process. So, when we say actions speak louder than words, it is true because words simply have the potential to be actualized whereas actions are a result of words that have gone through the process of actualization. In Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, we see Hamlet go through this process of actualization to avenge his father’s death. Hamlet contemplated the information the ghost revealed to him, and then through the play Hamlet requested from the actors, Claudius's conscience was caught and Hamlet believed the ghost. According to Hamlet’s belief, he was able to become, and finally, he took action to kill Claudius. After much contemplation on the contrary belief that man has free will and can momentarily decide on how they act, I still strongly believe that man goes through three stages before taking any actions and this is why. The human mind is like an ovum or an egg cell and precepts or information are like sperm cells. Egg cells can only become a fetus when fertilized by the sperm cells and if not fertilized, the egg dies. In this same manner, the mind is dead or infertile without precepts or information. Millions of sperm cells battle to reach the egg with only one purpose and that is to produce offspring. Precepts which are like sperms are all around us and they have one purpose and that is to influence our actions and behaviour. With sperms, only one manages to make it to the egg and comparably only certain ideas make it into our minds. After an egg becomes fertilized, it takes a span of nine months for that egg to complete the gestation process. Why then would the mind skip the process of actualization and act incongruously to an egg cell when a precept makes it into our minds? Everything we do or not do is a direct result of precepts. Through Hamlet, we can understand that the only thing we truly have free will over and can decide on is what information makes it through the process of actualization in our mind and not the way we act; precepts actualized result in inevitable action.

Works Cited
Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Simon & Schuster, 2003.