2) The question is to live or not to live. Is it more noble to suffer the outrageous misfortunes or to oppose those misfortunes and end my life. I wish very much to die and no longer suffer the heartaches and natural shocks that exist. When we are dead it is possible that we can no longer dream, but when we sleep we can dream. There is no reason to suffer through life for so long. Who would want to suffer all the things that are bad in life, and there is so much; unrequited love, the lack of efficient law, poor leadership. The patient man can not handle all of this and instead wants to take matters into his own hand even with a simple dagger. This would relieve the stresses that are suffered. But we do not know what awaits us in the after-life and this is what is so frightening. No one has ever returned from death and this is why it is so frightening. When we die we go someplace that we are not familiar with and join people whom we are not familiar with. This is why we are all afraid of death, and so the person who thinks about this situation does not know what to do. We are afraid of the action that we take causing death. But wait, What about Ophelia, the spirit. May my sins be remembered forever. 2) Before Hamlet begins his soliloquy the King is speaking with Polonius, the Queen, Ophelia, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The King is trying to discover what exactly is wrong with Hamlet because he has been acting very strangely with everybody. The King and Queen are hoping that Ophelia and his two friends will be able to find out what is troubling him.
The soliloquy itself is a summation of all of Hamlet's emotions throughout the play. Hamlet knows that his father was murdered by his uncle and he wants revenge, but he doesn't know how to go about this revenge and that maybe it would be better just to die. He is terribly afflicted and torn between his emotions and his thoughts. He is also fearful, as he says death is unfamiliar to everyone and is that what he really wants. This speech is really the climax of emotions for Hamlet when he is faced with the dilemma of taking action against his uncle or not. He is fearful that if he acts against the King it will cause his death. In the end Hamlet is decided that he will carry out a plot of revenge. This is also obvious by the fact that Hamlet really begins to shut Ophelia out of his life immediately following the speech.
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