'' 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 heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks (70)
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 ''

In the monologue Hamlet contemplates whether or not he should continue or end his own life.
In order to provide him self an answer he analizes what life and death are. To do it he makes a list of pros and cons about them.
Hamlet starts the monolgue analizing what they concern.
Life can be faced with being (action) or not being (inaction). Being implies to '' take arms against a sea of troubles'' and ''opposing them'' while not being implies to ''suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune'', so to be passively haunted by fate. Hamlet believes that life is synonymous with suffering: "whips and scorn of time, Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of disprized love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th'unworthy takes" (70-74).

Death is firstly compared to sleep because neither in death nor in sleep the humain being feels anything, any emotional or physical pain, he's free of his ''heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to'' and of his ''mortal coil''.
In the following lines death is also compared to dreams because you can't foresee what you'll dream (a nightmare or a beautiful dream) as you can't even imagine what comes after death ('' For in that sleep of death what dreams may come'')

This ''rub'' (fear) is the reason why you choose life, even if full of suffering ''whips and scorns of time''.

The idea of suffering and pain is expressed using words belonging to the semantic field of war (''slings'', ''arrows'', ''arms'') and also by the hyperbola ''sea of troubles'' (metaphore for life). In addition in place of life the reader finds the word ''calamity'', ''makes calamity of so long life'' and the frequent use of harsh sounds like ''r'', ''s'' and ''t'' ('' to, that,the, 'tis nobler, suffer, slings, arrows, take, outrageous fortune, arms, against, sea, truobles, heart, calamity, scorns, time'') focuses the reader's attention on the idea of battle and suffering.
The anaphoric repetition of sound ''a'' ('' arrows, take,arms against,outrageous, ache,natural, calamity'') underlines the idea of suffering and passion refering to life (even the word ''life'' contain that sound!) while the long sounds ''e'' (''death, die, sleep, we end, perchance, there's the, dreams, respect'') seam to focus the reader's attention on the distension of death and sleep. Therefore at the beginning (when Hamlet is discussing about life) there's a harrowing nearly fierce atmposphere instead when he refers to death the atmosphere is quiet, dreamy.
Hamlet reveals his beeing an adolescent: he's always insecure and almost manichean. There (''Indeed the first sentence ''to be or not to be'' expresses two opposite ideas of being or not being, living or dying, action and inaction (antithesis). There are many references to bodily needs seen as a prison ('' natural shocks that flesh is heir to'', ''mortal coil'', ''whips and scorns'').
In conclusion Hamlet thinks that fear prevents human being from committing suicide. But is suicide a form of action?