Analysis of Hamlet’s soliloquy

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
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,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.–Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember’d.

In his soliloquy, Hamlet tries to consider what is the best action to take between two opposite possibilities, two opposite behaviors: shall he suffer in his mind or fight against the outrageous fortune?

Literary, Hamlet wonders whether to keep the pain in his mind or to take arms and fight against a sea of troubles.

Shakespeare conveys the state of a very dubitative mind. Whenever the human being is in front of a very difficult decision he generally ponders what is the better position to take. Shakespeare observes the attitudes of the human mind.

What kind of language is used by Hamlet? It is important to consider linguistic and semantic choices since they reveal the deeper meaning of the text. Thanks to an intelligent use of language, the soliloquy acquires an existential quality and an existential dimension. We have to carry out a textual analysis: what words does the poet chose? While writing, Shakespeare took into consideration that Hamlet’s speech would be performed, therefore he considered the effect of the words on the audience.

Would it have the same effect saying ‘to live or not to live’ in spite of ‘to be or not to be’? No, it wouldn’t, because ‘to live’ refers to physical life; on the contrary ‘to be’ opens multiple choices of interpretation. It may mean ‘to exist’, ‘to live’ or ‘to remain alive’.

The semantic choice expresses a wider potential because the verb ‘to be’ is an infinite verb that includes and embodies all human kind. In addition it implies both the physical and the emotional dimension of living.

The infinite mood magnifies the meaning of the verb. Even from the structural point of view, the reader should understand that the structure of the monologue  consists in a contraposition of opposite elements: to be or not to be, to die and to live. There are a lot of levels of meaning, and as if there were a scale, Hamlet is pondering the two different positions.   

Hamlet’s language is abstract and concrete at the same time. Firstly he speaks about ‘to be nobler in the mind’, since he is already an aristocrat, and about ‘a sea of troubles’ exploiting metaphorical, abstract language. Secondly, he uses a very concrete language, and concrete expressions such as ‘slings and arrows’ that materially convey the pain he is feeling. Concrete language is juxtaposed to the abstract consideration ‘to be or not to be’, creating a contraposition between the abstract and the concrete, that conveys both the emotional and the physical suffering.  

The reader should remember that Hamlet is also expression of his social position: he is the Prince of Denmark. The reflection includes a consideration on the heir of the Danish throne, that has been usurped by Hamlet’s uncle, causing instability in Denmark. Indeed it wasn’t a natural succession according to the medieval philosophy of the chain of beings.

The reflection ‘to be or not to be’ includes the personal level (Hamlet as a young man, paradigm of the human being)  and the social level (Hamlet as the future heir of the Danish throne).

The soliloquy follows a binary structure.

Going in depth into the different options, Hamlet analyses the different possibilities: the first is to die, that is ‘not to be’. Hamlet analyses the consequences of the decision of dying and the colons opens up the argumentation: to die means to sleep forever. And if you fall in an eternal sleep you will suffer no more. Shakespeare, through Hamlet’s words, is pondering about someone who dies, who will suffer neither in the mind nor in the body.

Hamlet speaks about a ‘mortal coil’ since in the medieval philosophy the most relevant code was the religious one. Therefore the body was considered a burden, and death was the only solution to make human spirit free.

So why humans accept to go on living such an unjust, sad, hard life?

Finally Hamlet reaches the conclusion that humans don’t end their life because of the fear of something after death. The ignorance, the unknown is the main cause that force humans to go on living. Human beings are terrified by death, that is ‘the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns’.