To be, or not to be Monologue Essay Example for Free

To be, or not to be Monologue Essay ‘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?† Perhaps the most oft quoted of the bard’s words, this soloiloquy by Hamlet in Act III, Sc. 1 (58-62) defines the highest point of the dramatic conflict that is going on in the protagonist’s mind and reveals most insightfully the character of the prince and the crux of his great tragedy. Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, is troubled by the ethical implications of committing suicide: whether to live and suffer the vagaries of fate that humankind is subject to; or whether to rebel against the utter helplessness of the human condition and end it all in death.   The character of Hamlet is of a philosophical and contemplative bent and he is deeply troubled by ethical and philosophical issues that can never be answered with complete certainty. The contemplation of suicide at the height of his troubles is yet another example of this turn in his character. Is it noble â€Å"to suffer/ The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune†¦?†, Hamlet reflects and we are reminded of another of Shakespeare’s great tragic drama, King Lear, where after being mercilessly maltreated at the hands of fate Gloucester arrive at a similar conclusion about the essential tragedy of the human condition, puny beings powerless in front of an omnipotent and hostile fortune: â€Å"As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.†   Hamlet compares death to long-awaited sleep and reflects on the final peace and freedom it would bring to the tired and troubled soul: â€Å"To die,—to sleep,— /No more; and by a sleep to say we end /The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks /That flesh is heir to†¦Ã¢â‚¬ . Persuaded by this metaphor, he decides in support of suicide, but soon realizes the limitations of the comparision and the deeper and far greater implications of death. Once again we find Hamlet oscillating and intrinsically incapable of deciding on a course of action which is the crux of his tragedy. Just as he is incapable of deciding whether or not to take revenge on his wicked uncle who had beyond any reasonable doubt, killed his father and married his mother, so is he incapable of moving any further than the philosophical reflections on suicide and actually taking his life.   This soliloquy by Hamlet actually brings into focus all the most crucial themes of the play. It directly addresses the issues of death and suicide the significance of which can not be understressed. Through Hamlet’s incapability of motivating himself into action, the speech problematises yet again the complex relation between human thought and action. And last but not the least, it brilliantly dramatises the impossibility of finding any certain answers in an universe which is essentially ambiguous.   The biggest mystrey of the play Hamlet concerns nobody else but the character of Hamlet, and there has never been any dearth of speculation about his real motivations, his psychology etc. However, the famous Romantic critic William Hazlitt provided an interesting angle of approaching this highly complex charater when he wrote: â€Å"It is we who are Hamlet†¦.†. Truly, Hamlet, more than anything else is a brilliant metaphor for the human condition; a perfect representation of modern man. In his inability to arrive at any fruitful decision to act on, in the overwhelming drama that goes on in his mind all the time making him suffer all the more intensely and in his almost masochistic compulsion to probe the darkest and most fearsome depths of his own mind, he is surely the most perfect figure in literature to voice the most fundamental of all human question: â€Å"To be or not to be†¦?† Works Cited    Hazlitt, William. â€Å"Characters of Shakespears Plays†. http://shakespearean.org.uk/ham1-haz.htm Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Ed. R.A. Foakes. Surrey: International Thomson Publishing Company, 1997. Shakespeare, William. King Lear. Ed. R.A. Foakes. Surrey: International Thomson Publishing Company, 1997.