1. What Happens Just Prior to This Soliloquy? Effect? Possible Interpretations?

To Be or Not To Be - Soliloquy study

In Shakespeare, there is usually a passage spoken by a major character that seems to encapsulate the play's key themes. Stylistically, the passage embodies the major motifs/figures of speech in the play. Its function is a lot like a thesis paragraph in a paper, allowing you to focus your intentions in one place, and affording the reader an opportunity to know what you are about.

1. What happens just prior to this soliloquy? Effect? Possible interpretations?

2. Paraphrase (not summarize) the soliloquy (on this sheet next to the text) – you can use No Fear Shakespeare to help you.

HAMLET: 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 heartache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. 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, Th' 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 th' 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 undiscovered 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 enterprise of great pitch and moment With this regard their currents turn awry And lose the name of action.

3. How does diction, motif, imagery, syntax convey Hamlet’s complex character and state of mind (tone)? 4. What happens directly after this soliloquy? (And why might that be important to consider?)

5. Explain how existential and metaphysical thought (about the macrocosm/microcosm of the chain of being) plays into this soliloquy.

Unlike Hamlet's first two major soliloquies, the third and most famous speech seems to be governed by reason and not frenzied emotion. Unable to do little but wait for completion of his plan to "catch the conscience of the king", Hamlet sparks an internal philosophical debate on the advantages and disadvantages of existence, and whether it is one's right to end his or her own life. Some scholars limit Hamlet's discussion to a deliberation of whether he should take his own life. "Yet nothing anywhere in the speech relates it to Hamlet's individual case. He uses the pronouns 'we' and 'us', the indefinite 'who', the impersonal infinitive. He speaks explicitly of 'us all', of what 'flesh' is heir to, of what 'we' suffer at the hands of 'time' or 'fortune' - which serves incidentally to indicate what for Hamlet is meant by 'to be'" (Jenkins 489).

Hamlet asks the question for all dejected souls -- is it nobler to live miserably or to end one's sorrows with a single stroke? He knows that the answer would be undoubtedly "yes" if death were like a dreamless sleep. The "rub" or obstacle Hamlet faces is the fear of "what dreams may come" (74), i.e. the "dread of something after death" (86). Hamlet is well aware that suicide is condemned by the church as a mortal sin.

Hamlet's soliloquy is interrupted by Ophelia who is saying her prayers. Hamlet addresses her as "Nymph", a courtly salutation common in the Renaissance1. Some critics argue that Hamlet's greeting is strained and coolly polite, and his request that she remembers him in her prayers is sarcastic. However, others claim that Hamlet, emerging from his moment of intense personal reflection, genuinely implores the gentle and innocent Ophelia to pray for him.

Mabillard, Amanda. Hamlet's Soliloquy Analysis. Shakespeare Online. 20 Aug. 2000. (date when you accessed the information) < http://shakespeare-online.com/plays/hamlet/soliloquies/tobeanalysis.html >.

1. Line 55 - To be or not to be is an example of antithesis, a rhetorical device containing a contrast of ideas in a balanced parallel construction. The use of antithesis draws attention to the first line of the soliloquy and focuses the reader on one of the play's prominent themes. 2. Lines 59, 60, 61 - Hamlet uses metonymy, a special type of metaphor that substitutes the name of one thing with something it is closely associated with. In these examples sleep represents death. 3. Lines 57, 69 - Hamlet uses a metaphor, comparing slings and arrows and the whips and scorns of time to life's problems. 4. Lines 69-73 - Hamlet uses parallel structure, a rhetorical device comprised of phrases with like grammatical structure, to create rhythm and draw attention to life's woes. 5. Line 79 - Hamlet uses a metaphor, calling death "the undiscovered country, from whose bourne no traveller returns." 6. Lines 83-84 - Suicide is referred to as "the native hue of resolution," a metaphor; the fear of death is referred to as the "pale cast of thought."