TO BE OR NOT TO BE  (lines 6-22)

The task wanted us to analyse the contents from lines six to twenty-two of Hamlet’s soliloquy written by W. Shakespeare.

This is one of the best-known text in the world. It deals with the themes of life and death.

In these particular lines Hamlet is taking in consideration the idea of “not to be”.

He believes that dying means falling asleep: a sleep of death. Hamlet is afraid of the possibility of dreaming while sleeping. (To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub).

 He wonders of what we could dream about if we left all the worldly things on earth. (For in that sleep of death what dreams may come/When we have shuffled of this mortal coil).

He wants to underline that we cannot know what is expecting us in the after-death world and this is why people are too afraid to commit suicide. He continues saying that our fear of the unknown after-death  world makes problematic lives last longer. (Must give us pause - there's the respect/That makes calamity of so long life).

As a matter of fact people prefer to face the known worldly problems rather than the unknown ones.

This is the reason why people bear every kind of injustice in this world rather than committing suicide. Hamlet poses some examples of struggles of life such as:  the will of the oppressors, the insolence of proud man, the pain for unreturned lovers, the laws delay, the rudeness of office and the suffers that right people go through. (For who would bear the whips and scorns of time/Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,/The pangs of despis'd love, the laws delay,/The insolence of office, and the spurns /That patient merit of th'unworthy takes).

Hamlet posing a rhetorical question which says that if all the struggles of the world could have been stopped by just a dagger, who would keeps on with his/her life? Sweating under the problems of life? (When he himself might his quietus make/With a bare bodkin; who would fardels bear,/To grunt and sweat under a weary life)