To be or not to be
We see Hamlet ride an emotional roller coaster filled with grief, shame, anger, depression, and self doubt. Hamlets "to be or not to be" soliloquy demonstrates all of Hamlet's emotions that he has been struggling with throughout the play. This soliloquy merely gives us a summation of these emotions in regards to his father's death, his mother's hasty remarriage, the ghost, and his own procrastination in seeking the revenge of his fathers murder. In order for me to better understand what Hamlet was attempting to say within this soliloquy I had to put it into words I could better understand: Hamlet: Do I really want to live? Should I go on like this, Being miserable, and try to beat my enemies? Or should I just kill myself and get it all over with? Life sucks. I wish I were dead. Death is like a nice, long nap. But what if I dream of really bad things? It's definitely something to worry about. If there wasn't anything to fear in the afterlife, Why would anyone suffer through this miserable existence? Why deal with life's troubles when it all could be solved with a dagger? No reason...unless something bad might lie beyond the grave. No one comes back from the dead to tell us what it's li
So we go on living and being unhappy. That patient merit of th' unworthy takes, What does Hamlet mean by this? He truly sees that he only has two options, to take his own life or to kill Claudius, a him or me type scenario. Basically I feel, as I stated before, that he is debating whether or not to commit suicide and brave what may happen on the other side, or to actually face his problems and get his revenge. I see the "slings and arrows" as being symbolic of all the devil's tools of torture. If suicide were a mortal sin, he would be doomed to eternal damnation and would be a victim of the "outrageous fortune" or circumstances that he has created by committing suicide. When Hamlet speaks of the "sea of troubles" I see this as him questioning whether or not to actually seek his revenge and finally killing Claudius. In closing Hamlet furthers his reasoning by saying that his true self has been tainted by the many thoughts that have clouded his mind. By constantly thinking about suicide and revenge he has been taking out of his right frame, maybe even partially into madness. He now has a better understanding of who he really is and what he must do. He is starting to overcome his self-doubt and finally sees the course of action he must take. As the rest of the play unfolds we can see that slowly bit by bit he grows even more confident and focused on his goal of revenge and see him think of suicide less and less. The grunt and sweat
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 986
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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