Hamlet's Soliloquies On Suicide: To Be Or Not To Be

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What images of death are presented in this play? Discuss Hamlet’s soliloquies on suicide: ‘To be or not to be’
- Hamlet’s soliloquy to be or not to be can be considered as one the most famous lines in the English language.
- Hamlet is literally deciding whether to live or to commit suicide. However, he doesn’t word it as: should I end my life but rather to be or not to be. It is without question that the idea of existence itself is what Hamlet is trying to decipher throughout this soliloquy.
- Hamlet at this point in the play is seen as contemplating about the nature of death.
- Hamlet through his words compares death as being in a deep sleep. He proclaims how wonderful it would be if death was an eternal rest. The idea of such a death appeals to Hamlet only until he deciphers what dreams might appear to him in such an …show more content…

- This frightens Hamlet. I believe that Hamlet is most afraid of what lies after death and it is evident that he is making the claim that if one was in his position one would also choose to live for death is unknown and could possibly be even worse then the sufferings endured on earth.
- Throughout the monologue Hamlet is seen as contemplating the concept of death and asking multiple complex questions regarding the afterlife. He also seems to mentions the many sufferings in which human beings are likely to endure throughout life, which enforces this idea of suicide yet again.
- However, by the end of this soliloquy, he finally comes to a realisation as he proclaims, “But that 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”
- In this section Hamlet proclaims that humans bear the burdens and labours of life only to avoid the unknown mysteries and terrors of the next world, the “undiscovered

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