To Be or not to Be Does not Mean to Live or Not to Live - Book Report/Review Example

The topic of suicide in the play “Hamlet” Introduction Suicide is an important element of Shakespearian plays. Actually, the famous dramatist put much sense into this topic and maybe nobody except him researched it so deeply. In his tragedies we see the suicides committed due to different reasons: despair, mental disorder and even the imitation of suicide that we can see in “Romeo and Juliet”. In total we can find the suicide or its possibility in fifteen plays written by Shakespeare. If we talk about Hamlet, we can’t but mention that suicide represents a continuous theme in the tragedy. During the play Hamlet considers suicide many times, his thinking about the life and its essence, about the troubles of real life and the fascination of unconsciousness is famous all over the world as remains unique. The given paper will discuss two famous soliloquies of Hamlet, in which he is talking about death and prove that Hamlet does not really want and was going to die. Hamlet is naive and passionate, not suicidal. Evidence: Soliloquy in Act I When we get acquainted with Hamlet, his first soliloquy in Act I reveals his nature. We see a passionate and vulnerable guy who is extremely astounded by his father’s death. He is almost a child and can’t help crying and wishing to die to be with his beloved father. It is very difficult to lose parents, especially when you are still young. Moreover, Hamlet has one more reason to be so upset: his beloved mother does not share his sorrow. Instead she is celebrating her wedding with Hamlet’s uncle Claudius. A young person, who still considers love to be a sacred thing is shocked with such an indifference. The pain is stronger because he knows what love is himself – and we remember about Hamlet’s feeling to Ophelia. Hamlet knows what love is, thus he is extremely astounded by the events as he considered his father’s marriage to be happy. The young guy is so upset that he says: “O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into dew” (1.2.133-134). Here we meet a theme of suicide. Hamlet is thinking about death. But the question is if these thoughts could really lead to suicide. These thoughts are rather a result of feeling lonely after loosing parents. The father is dead and the mother is married to another man, thus she does not share the son’s sorrow about the death of his father. These thoughts of suicide are not true, they are the results of the young guy’s despair. Hamlet’s soul is beautiful and he was sure that the souls of other people, especially his own mother’s soul was also pure and beautiful. But now he calls his mother: “an unweeded garden that grows to seed.” (1.2.139). He considered his mother to be sacred but suddenly became a witness of her fall. He is full of negative emotions, thus he thinks about death like many other people in such state. Hamlet is also religious. He perfectly understands that death is a sin, thus he should not even think about it. He feels bad but would never commit suicide at that moment as he believes in “Everlasting” (1.2.135). In the Act 1 Hamlet still believes that the God would save him and would not let him die. Here we see Hamlet as still young, naive and sentimental creature who cries about the love between his parents, which he considered to be true, but now he has to change his mind because of the mother’s very fast marriage. Having high moral principles and believing in God, Hamlet suffers recollecting his mother’s “unrighteous tears” (1.2.159) caused by the father’s death, the tears, which he considered to be true. “To be or not to be” does not mean “to live or not to live”. Evidence: Soliloquy in Act III In the Act 3 we already see Hamlet from another side and this makes us understand that everything he said and was thinking about in Act 1 was just childish melancholy. Hamlet also understands this and this is what his most famous soliloquy is focused on. After his conversation with the ghost he suddenly realizes that everything he was worried about before was stupid melancholy of a young and sentimental guy. Now he got a real problem and has to solve it. But the question is if he should solve it, when it is easier to leave everything as it is and live further not even thinking about the dialogue with a ghost. Young Hamlet suddenly understood the realities of life and faced all its difficulties. The question is what was real. The ghost seems not to be real as people do not usually see ghosts. There is a serious controversy over the question if Hamlet was sane or insane. Really, the basic ground for the controversy is his conversation with the ghost. There were many people in the castle but it was only Hamlet who it, thus it makes his mental state very doubtful. Moreover, after he saw the ghost, he thinks about suicide saying in his famous soliloquy: “To be, or not to be: that is the question” (3.2. 56). But were these worlds about the suicide? These worlds testify that Hamlet perfectly understands that the ghost may not be real and he should check everything. The question is if he should check or not. Why should he do anything if it is easier to leave everything as it is? Now he understands that the problems, which were the reasons of his sorrow in Act 1 were not the real issues to worry about. Hamlet is totally sane, he is just confused. Misfortunes never come singly and the real trouble came suddenly and caught him unprepared, unrecovered from his father’s death. He wants to leave everything as it is and live further: “to sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub” (3.2. 65). But now all the dreams were lost, melancholy remains in the past. The question is: to be or not to be, and this is a serious question. Hamlet loves his mother and Ophelia and he understands that if he implements the corresponding research and finds proofs of the ghost’s world, he will have to forget about these feelings: “the fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remember'd” (3.2. 90). Such thoughts bring terrible pain to him, but he understands that he has no other way out, he should make an investigation and then commit revenge. Discussion The topic of suicide in the play “Hamlet” is very controversial. Critics have very different opinions about it. Some considers Hamlet to be mad and his soliloquies to be the outcome of mentally ill brain. Others prefer to think that Hamlet was a potential self-murdered obsessed by the thoughts about death. The given work states that Hamlet was not a self-murderer and he never was going to commit suicide. Hamlet is a complex personality that undergoes evolution during the play. Until he found out about his father’s murder, he was just a naive young guy who was upset by his father’s death and the mother’s fast marriage. His thoughts about suicide are not true, they are the outcomes of his sentimental nature and stress he went through. Hamlet is noble and honest and he considers all the people to be noble and honest too. But his hopes and beliefs are suddenly broken and cruel fate presents him with a difficult task – to find out the truth about his father’s death. It was very difficult for a young person to find out such truth and accept this task, but Hamlet proved that he was brave and noble to commit revenge upon his father’s killer. Works Cited Edwards, Phillip. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. New Cambridge Shakespeare ser. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985 Read More