"To be or not to be....that is the question."
Throughout Shakespeare's play, "Hamlet" it has been noted that there are four main soliloquy's. These principal speeches are representative of Hamlets thought process through out the play. The third soliloquy has been noted as one of the most prominent of all of shakepeares works. It could be argued that it encompasses Hamlet's final decision on how to deal with the event that has taken place. Furthermore, it plays an intricate part in the story as a whole.
The third soliloquy begins by saying, "To be, or not to be; that is the question"
This first line is a preface to what the entire passage will be about. This is Hamlet questioning if he should kill himself or take revenge and kill his uncle.
"Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arm against a sea of troubles,
At this point, Hamlet is deciding whether it would be better to not engage in any revenge for his fathers death against his uncle, or to go up "against a sea of troubles" his uncle, and take retaliation for what happened by doing to him what he had done to his father. He ponders on the idea of whether he fighting a useless battle that could kill him while in the act. When he says, "end them" he is speaking of killing him. He then goes on to say,
No more, and by a sleep to say we end"
This is when Hamlet first introduces the idea of sleep, where he is referring to
death. Usually when you close your eyes you are sleeping but by this analogy he is
referring to the sleep when you never awake, as to die. It is at this part that he begins to
think of what happens after you die and begins to worry about it. He continues,
"The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to - 'tis a consummation
Here he is thinking of all t...