Hamlet's Soliloquy Essay

This soliloquy is spoken by Hamlet in Act III, scene I (58–90). In Hamlets speech he forms many connections to the play’s major themes, including the idea of suicide and death, the difficulty of obtaining the truth from a spiritually ambiguous universe, and the connection between thought and performing an action. In this Hamlet makes very good argumentative points as to why suicide cannot be the answer to solve his problems. He effectively provides evidence of both options as whether to commit the act of suicide or not and the results that may possibly follow either choice. For me this creates a very interesting image of a man so intellectually conscious of his actions and the results that follow them, when the act of suicide is often determined
Then he determines the moral consequences of both living and dying. It is known to be a more noble deed to suffer through life, “The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune (64),”then to actively attempt to end one’s suffering. He then compares death to sleep, thinking of how it may bring his suffering to an end, “The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks, That flesh is heir to (68-69).” This metaphor is used here to determine that suicide in this situation is a necessary action, “a consummation, Devoutly to be wished.” (69-70) But the word “devoutly” used here suggests that there is more to the question, reflecting on what may happen in the afterlife. Hamlet quickly realizes he mistake of misinterpretation as he reconfigures the metaphor of sleep to include the possibility of dreaming, “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”. (71-74) He then decides that the uncertainty of the afterlife, which is closely related to the theme of attaining truth in a spiritually unruly world, this difficulty is essentially what prevents humanity from simply committing suicide in any situation with the efforts of ending their pains of life. He outlines a long list of pains from his life experiences, ranging from lovesickness to political oppression. Hamlet asks who would choose to endure those pains if peace could be obtained with the swift act of a knife, “When he himself might his quietus make, With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bare”. (81-82) In answering his own question he says, no one would choose to live through their miseries if they didn’t have to, “But that the dread of something after death” (84) is the only conscious thought that makes people resistant to the suffering taking place