To be or not to be

"To be or not to be" is the most famous soliloquy acted by Hamlet (act III, scene I) in Shakespeare's play; it begins with the famous line made by the same words, and it has the function to express the character's feelings, when the speaking person is alone.

For Hamlet it is an important question, literally one of life and death, and it uses the infinitive basic verb "to be" because it refers to something general, including all meanings.

Hamlet, the main character, is thinking about his existence: he wants to know and understand what it is better for him: to live or to die; and the reader can understand it also from the first line "to be or not to be, that is the question". In this line the verb "to be" expresses the idea of existing, not only to live, in fact the writer wants to show that Hamlet is analyzing the possibility of suicide. We can understand it from the next lines, when Hamlet is thinking to the possibility of not existing, cancelling all his life and choices.

In fact the main character thinks that, on one hand it is better to die, ending all the problems (slings and arrows) caused by negative (outrageous) fortune, and responsibilities and going towards die and sleep, instead of fighting (take arms) against troubles and try to stop them.

Thinking this, Hamlet doesn't want to admit his responsibilities and his mistakes and prefers to them a long sleep without sufferings, forgetting reality, avoiding problems and dreaming, that corresponds to the death.

Saying this, Hamlet says that he is not able to understand reality because he may have the illusion that problems are finished and he can also create his own world, based on his own rules, in which all passions are stopped (To die, to sleep;/ no more? And by a sleep, to say we end/ the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks/ That flesh is heir to.                         ‘Tis a consummation/ Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep.").