28/11/2020

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS ON THE EXTRACT TO BE, OR NOT TO BE

To be, or not to be is a most famous soliloquy of William Shakespeare. In this soliloquy Hamlet talking about the human condition and he asks the question: “to be, or not to be”. In this act we can see the massive presence of personal pronouns and possessive adjectives.
Hamlet starts by asking the main question, the dilemma that will accompany him to the end and puts him to infinity. He wonders if it is more noble to face the problems that life poses to him or to fight them.

In lines 5-10 Hamlet introduces an alternative, namely that of dying and then sleeping and putting an end to all suffering caused by life. But there is an obstacle which prevents man from committing suicide and this obstacle is the fear of what might happen after death.

He compares die with sleep, he thinks that when someone sleep, dreams, and he think that happens also when some die. A problem is that when we fall asleep, we can dream, but we can have also nightmares.

Hamlet lists some characteristics that make life difficult for humanity and wonders why to continue living when with a bare bodkin you can put an end to your problems.
Hamlet says that man, however, suffers all these injustices because he is afraid, he is afraid of what is after death, which is expressed with the image of the unknown country from which no travellers returns. This makes it possible for man to be able to endure the evils he has in life, instead of going to look for others that he does not know exist.
Hamlet ultimately says that knowledge makes us who we are and makes us make decisions that can completely change our lives.