Hamlet's Soliloquy-To Be Or Not To Be

To Be Or Not To Be

(Three Messages from Hamlet Soliloquy)

Life is never easy and people every day are struggling against different circumstances. Some fight depression, addiction, divorce, death of a family member or friend. In Hamlet written by William Shakespeare, Hamlet is having a very hard time dealing with and coping with his father’s death. Along with that burden, his mother also re-married quickly after to his father’s brother; or Hamlets uncle in other words. Throughout the play Hamlet is depressed and in a state of consuming sadness and no hope. In Hamlet’s soliloquy “To be or not to be” he pours out his feelings and emotions. This makes that the most important part of the play because it explains the play as a whole. “The meaning

In the first act of the play, Hamlet curses God for making suicide an immoral option or a sin. He states, “that this too solid flesh would melt,/ Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!/ Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d/ His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!” (Act 1, Scene 2, Lines 129-132). At this early point in the text it is clear that Hamlet is weighing the benefits versus drawbacks of ending his own life, but also that he recognized that suicide is a crime in God’s eyes and could then make his afterlife worse than his present situation. With the death of his father it pulls Hamlet into a deep depression to when he can’t think of anything other than death. Newell explained, “In essence, many of Hamlet’s thoughts revolve around death and this early signal to his melancholy state prepares the reader for the soliloquy that will come later in Act III.” In other words, most of the play is about death, so in the soliloquy Hamlet goes into detail about wish of dying if it wasn’t for it being a sin to end your own life. Clearly, suicide is a message in the soliloquy “to be or not to be” in the play

After Hamlet’s father passes away, he is visited by his ghost. This is when he is informed that Hamlet’s father’s brother is the murderer behind his father’s death. That enrages Hamlet, and makes him hate his mom for being with him, and his stepdad/uncle. That is when he decided to seek revenge on Claudius. “So by his father lost. And this, I take it,/ Is the main motive of our preparations” (Act 1, Scene 1, Lines 116-117). Meaning that because of his father’s death and circumstances, it was Hamlet’s motives for seeking revenge. “Hamlet’s fathers ghost returns to ask his own son to avenge his murder. It seems pretty clear that Shakespeare wants us to pay attention to father-son relationships in this play” (Khoury). Clearly, family is a message in the soliloquy “to be or not to be” spoken by