This soliloquy tells us about Hamlet’s constant inability to do anything about the pain caused by his present circumstances

This soliloquy tells us about Hamlet’s constant inability to do anything about the pain caused by his present circumstances. Hamlet wonders how an actor would portray him, and we can assume that these actions from the actor are the actions that Hamlet would take to express his feelings. However, he is unable to respond in the same way. He starts believing he is a “pigeon-livered” coward lacking gall, because he wants to revenge on his uncle, King Claudius, but he only complains to himself but accomplishes nothing. He compares himself to pigeons because they have no gall and thus no capacity to feel resentment or to seek revenge and their liver also is seen as the body’s storehouse for courage. However, he remembers that a play reflecting a murder might cause people to confess their crimes and hope his uncle would react in such a way as to prove his guilt. Hamlet needs the evidence because he worries that the ghost he met could turn out to be the devil who causes him to be weak and committing a sin against his maybe innocent uncle. At the end of the soliloquy Hamlet still feels sad, angry and frustrated but his constant feeling of inability to do something is overcome by a belief that he possibly can do something to his present circumstances.