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Hamlet Rhetorical Analysis

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“Pain is inevitable suffering is optional”
-Buddha
Pain and suffering are evident in William Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet, yet Hamlet experiences of pain transformed him…...Yet his suffering accumulates in his soliloquy in Act 3 scene 1, where he contemplates suicide. Through this metaphor, Shakespeare conveys his message of how humans can inflict their own suffering, which leads to their downfall. To convey this message, he utilizes rhetorical questions, paradoxes and metaphors of sleep. The array of rhetorical questions begins in the first line with “to be or not to be” and then dives into another question “whether tis nobler in mind to suffer...(quote)”( lines 65-68). Here, he ponders whether he should remain stagnant and suffer or avenge …show more content…

Uniquely, he juxtaposes the traditional function of sleep in lines 9 and lines 10, which further creates chaos. For instance, in line... Hamlet recites, “To die to sleep- no more and by a sleep to say we end the heartache and thousand natural shocks”). Here, sleep allows the mind to discharge from day and rest. Yet in lines 73-75,” Ay, there’s the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come, sleep now has more negative connotation; sleep provides humans with naive idealism and optimism for a new day. The problems that vanish in night while person rests, can still haunt them in their new day. Hamlet feels this sentiment, which causes him great discomfort. However, soon after this, Hamlet delivers, Hamlet believes that sleep provides humans with a false sense stability because problems slept off at night, will haunt them in the day. Sleep cannot end human suffering. The only true force in ending one’s suffering is themselves, yet Hamlet fails to realize this; instead he continues on his plan to avenge through petty schemes and ultimately killing innocent man, Polonius. In doing so, he causes more suffering unto himself, which lead him to his

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