COLLEGE OF
SOUTHEASTERN
EUROPE
ENG 3108
“Studies in English Literature”
Instuctor: Dr. Panagopoulos
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Shakespeare |
Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”
Essay 3
Analyse Hamlet's "to be or not to be" soliloquy, concentrating on the philosophical and ethical dilemmas and imagery used to convey them. Locate any ambiguities of meaning.
By, Fotios Bassayiannis
Act 3, Scene 1 contains the famous "to be or not to be" soliloquy by Hamlet. This essay will attempt to analyse this soliloquy in contrast with the two previous ones. Lets begin by offering a description of what Hamlet really says in his soliloquy, thus taking away the ever-present factor of the cryptic Shakespearean language.
Hamlet begins his soliloquy by questioning which is the "nobler" code of behaviour, that which bids one "to be," that is to live even though this means "to suffer" from "outrageous fortune," or that which bids one "not to be," that is to commit suicide and thus "end" one's suffering through the act of "opposing" the outrage which fortune would do him. "To die," he reasons, is "to sleep - no more," and by such a sleep it is possible to "end the heartache, and the thousand natural shocks" that human beings inherit in the process of being born. Such an end to human troubles, he concludes is "a consummation devoutly to be wished." "To die," he repeats, is "to sleep," but in sleep, he now remembers, there is also the possibility of dreams and this creates a new difficulty. For when we have cast off the difficulties of life "in that sleep of death," we do not know "what dreams may come," and this must cause us to hesitate before committing suicide. This is what causes people to endure the "calamity" of a "long life." For who would bear the injuries of existence, the wrongs and humiliations of oppression, "the pangs of despised love," the delay in both law and position which those with merit must patiently bear from the unworthy and insolent people who do receive high office, who would bear the general burdens of "a weary life," etc. This consciousness of the religious problem involved with suicide, the dread of eternal punishment, "does make cowards of us all," and "the pale cast of thought" sickens the power of "resolution," and this not only with regards to suicide but to all great "enterprises," whose force is similarly turned away into inaction through over-consideration.
In our last view of Hamlet during the "rogue and peasant
slave" soliloquy, we saw Hamlet in a state of guilt over his long inaction
which was resolved by a new commitment to a course of positive action. Now, we
see him sunk once more in suicidal melancholy, forgetful of the whole question
of this revenge. He is, however, again concerned with the conflict between the
honour code and the religious moral code, but it is now centred on the question
of suicide rather than murder. As either course, however, would lead him into
mortal sin, he does well to tell Ophelia to pray for "all my sins."
Though prompted by honour first to revenge and now to suicide, his religious
beliefs inhibit him from taking such action. But the power of religion over
him is more negative than positive; it is fear of eternal punishment rather
than the value of righteousness which motivates him. As fear, however, is an
ignoble emotion, his sense of honour arises once more to accuse him of
cowardice, just as it did in the previous soliloquy. He concludes that the
reason for the cowardly inaction which he despises in himself is that he thinks
too much and overintellectualizes his problems to the point of inertia.
Hamlet's conclusion here has been accepted by the great nineteenth century
English poet and critic, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, as the solution to the
problem of Hamlet's inactivity, and it has since remained one of the standard
critical approaches to the play.
One can notice here that as long as the power of Hamlet's religion over him is a negative one, it cannot destroy the influence of the honour code upon his spirit, but simply inhibits its power to motivate sustained positive action. The result is that Hamlet remains a prey to the worst effects of both codes, guilt and shame, which has the additional result of driving him stilt further into suicidal melancholy. He has but to think of taking action, as he does in the second soliloquy, and he becomes so overwhelmed by internal conflicts, that he soon can desire nothing but suicide, as we see in the third soliloquy. But this in turn produces its own vicious cycle of guilt, followed by shame which proceeds to such a point that he feels shackled by his very consciousness of such thoughts, and blames them in turn for his inactivity.
It is, however, the nature of his conflicts, part of which he admits that he does not himself understand, which produces his inertia rather than any overintellectualizing he may do about them. The inertia is there; the intellectualizing comes afterwards as an attempt to understand the inactivity and then becomes useful to Hamlet as a means of rationalising his unfathomed apathy and melancholy. As we have seen in the two past soliloquies, Hamlet thinks about his problems just to the point at which he can develop some rationalisation for his inactivity, (in the second soliloquy it is doubt about the ghost's nature, in the third soliloquy it is overintellectualization of his problems), and then he seems to conclude his inner investigations, fully satisfied for the time.
One other interesting statement he makes here is that "no traveller returns" from "the undiscovered country" of death. Such a statement would deny that the ghost was the spirit of his father returned from death and would indicate that the doubt about the ghost had grown stronger in the interval between the two soliloquies. This in turn would free him from the sense of obligation to commit revenge, and so the necessity for life, and enable him more freely to contemplate suicide. But this statement also indicates a weakening of his religious convictions to a point of agnosticism, further showing the negative quality of his religion and perhaps even a result of the ever more deadening effect of religious commandments upon his impulses. This agnosticism, however, is important for tragedy which requires the spectator to feel that death is dreadful. If there were no question that Hamlet was going to heaven at the end of the play, his death would not really be tragic.
One final question concerns the form of this soliloquy. There are some modern critics who see it only as an exercise in rhetoric such as Hamlet might have studied at the University of Wittenberg. While it is true that the question form of the soliloquy, with the balancing of two alternatives, is similar to rhetorical exercises of the time and might indicate that Hamlet was using his logical training to attack his personal problems, to dismiss the whole soliloquy as an intellectual exercise or game is going too far, for the first soliloquy is also personally concerned with suicide and Hamlet is immediately to make some further suicidal statements in his scene with Ophelia.
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Sometimes I think of the time I spent in pause
My eyes locked on doors that close…
The older I get…the better I was.
But then I smell a red, red rose…