Throughout the play,
Hamlet steadily progresses from moral idealism to his final state of fatalistic moral pragmatism. With the development of the true resolve inherent to masculine firmness, Hamlet loses his innocence. Disillusioned towards love by his mother and
Ophelia, Hamlet is further disillusioned to slaughter by the sight of
Fortinbras' army. He notes that: "The immenent death of twenty thousand men (will occur) for a fantasy or a trick of fame." Such
courage in the face of "death and danger" makes Hamlet more critical of his "craven scruple of thinking too precisely on the event." Unlike earlier
soliliquys riddled with uncertainty and philosophical meandering, the sight of Fortinbras' armed head has made Hamlet bloody, bold, and resolute. This new boldness does not eclipse his philosophical nature but rather is incorporated into it. He begins to redefine his morality, changing it to the point where he considers greatness to be "finding quarrel in a straw where honour is at stake." He questions the value of men whose "chief good and market of their time be but to sleep and feed." No longer absorbed with how to nobly respond to suffering, Hamlet now takes Fortinbras' example of action: an example that "informs against him." This soliliquy thus marks a profoundly important transition in Hamlet's perception of the world and provides foreshadowing for bloody deeds to come. In place of the thoughtful,
Christian, idealist now stands a man firmly committed to revenge.
Semisane