Quote: "To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?—To die,—to sleep,—
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,—’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die,—to sleep;—
To sleep: perchance to dream:—ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despis’d love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,—
The undiscover’d 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?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action."
The voice filled with life, feeling, and death. Lightly are not the words spoken, but with the truth of it all. Hamlet pressured down with the power and grief of events, can no longer stand his life, no longer stand the scenes, and no longer stand the pain. This soliloquy and probably the most famous speech in the English language, is spoken by Hamlet in Act III, scene i (58–90). Hamlet, during this line, proposes if "self-slaughter" or suicide is a logical answer to what is going on in his life. But first, in this quote he proposes the question: "To be or not to be" or in other words: to live or not to live. He next specifies and compares the points of life and death. He compares the differences of life with death and how one feels in both situations. Being a character of high stature, he wishes to do the most noble act; he concludes it is noble to live and suffer life but still wonders if living or dying would seem better to the public. This is said in the line “Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer" / "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune..." He compares death to sleep and thinks of it as the end to suffering, pain. However, he argues over the uncertainty it might bring: “The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks" / "That flesh is heir to.” Based on this metaphor, we can see that he decides that suicide is a desirable course of action, “a consummation" / "Devoutly to be wished.” However, the religious word “devoutly” signifies in his quote that there is more to the question: what will happen in the afterlife. Hamlet immediately realizes and he restates his metaphor of sleep to include the possibility of death as dreaming: "To sleep: perchance to dream:—ay, there’s the rub..." He says that the dreams that may come in the sleep of death are daunting, that they “Must give us pause: there’s the respect."
This is where his problem of nobility ends. He now talks through a series of events aiming at the afterlife. He finds that the reason self- slaughter is avoided stated as: "That makes calamity of so long life." Next, from "For who would bear the whips and scorns of time" until "No traveller returns,—puzzles the will" he rambles on about what the possibilities of the afterlife could be made of. He decides that this is why victims of depression would "(And makes us) rather bear those ills we have/ Than fly to others that we know not of."
Hamlet slowly turns down his ranting of death: "Thus conscience does make cowards of us all/ And thus the native hue of resolution/ Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought/And enterprises of great pith and moment/ With this regard, their currents turn awry/ And lose the name of action." The final statements can be interpreted as he too now with others, has his conscience turning him down due to religious reasons and how disgusting suicide can be seen as in the eyes of The Lord and in the eyes of his people. With this, he falls into a moment of silence and wipes the death tolls echo out of his ears slowly sauntering away.
1 comment:
Fri-Fri!!! I really liked your piece. Miss you!
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