ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relationship between inner talk and outer talk – between monologue and dialogue. It focuses on the ways that moral and political imperatives reach into monologue and how dialogues can be restricted and compromised by the machinations of power. Hamlet is generally seen as being all about Hamlet. Productions are judged by his performance, he is barely off stage, has many more lines than the other characters and a feast of soliloquies that invite the audience into his interior space. The relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia is hard to bring to life, constructed as it is to highlight the emotional manipulations of others. Ophelia is generally shown as descending in lineal fashion deeper and deeper into a psychotic state with few possibilities for alternative understandings. The forms of madness Shakespeare accorded Hamlet and Ophelia are deeply embedded in representations of masculinity and femininity.
