Tuesday, February 9, 2016

According to your reading of the "to be or not to be" soliloquy in Hamlet, explain which one you think Hamlet chooses and why?

In Hamlet's speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet
(Act 3.1.56-88), the "to be" Hamlet says refers to existence:  Hamlet
is asking, to exist, or not to exist, that is the
question


The play opens with Hamlet suffering
from melancholia, or depression.  Before the opening line of the play, he suffers his
father's unexpected death, his mother's hasty and incestuous marriage, and the loss of
the thrown (to Claudius, who marries the queen).  He is understandably
depressed.


In Act 1 the Ghost appears and tells Hamlet that
his father was murdered, and instructs Hamlet to gain revenge for him, but Hamlet, by
the time he makes his "to be" speech isn't sure if the Ghost is really that of his
father or if it might be a devil trying to deceive him.


Add
to the above the fact that Ophelia and Ros. and Guil. have all turned against him, so to
speak, and Hamlet is wondering whether or not existence is worth while.  That is what
the speech is about.   


During the speech, Hamlet, so to
speak, backs into an answer.  He decides that existence is better than the alternative. 
He decides that since no one knows with certainty what lies on the other side of death,
one is better off existing.  "For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,..." he
proclaims:


readability="17">

But that the dread of something after
death,


The undiscovered country, from whose
bourn


No traveller returns, puzzles the
will,


And makes us rather bear those ills we
have


Than fly to others that we know not
of?



Hamlet chooses existence,
not for any life-affirming reason, but out of fear of what lies on the other side of the
grave.


As he says:


readability="5">

Thus conscience does make cowards of us
all.


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