You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The dramatic device of a play within a play has proven very effective and has been successfully employed in many plays. Its use, although frequently dictated by technical considerations, may actually be considered to be related to a familiar psychological mechanism seen in dream work, namely, a dream within a dream.
Freud, in discussing this subject, wrote: "What is dreamt in a dream after waking from the 'dream within a dream' is what the dream wish seeks to put in the place of an obliterated reality. It is safe to suppose, therefore, that what has been 'dreamt' in the dream is a representation of the reality, the true recollection, while the continuation of the dream, on the contrary, merely represents what the dreamer wishes. To include something in a 'dream within a dream' is thus equivalent to wishing that the thing described as a dream had never happened. In other words, if a particular event is inserted into a dream as a dream by the dream work itself, this implies the most decided confirmation of the reality of the event—the strongest affirmation of it" (1).
It is impossible, in this brief communication, to go into great length with regard to either any number of plays or even the complex details of any single one of them. In order to elucidate my point, therefore, I shall limit the paper to one dramatic work which is well known to everyone, namely, Hamlet.
We find here an interesting situation in which Hamlet contrives with the players to stage a performance which would test the truth of the ghost's assertions.
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.—ACT II, ii