Moral Doubt in Hamlet's Soliloquy - To be or not to be...

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The Moral Question in Hamlet's Soliloquy - To be or not to be...

"The major question in 'To be or not to be' cannot be suicide. If it were, as many have noted, it would be dramatically irrelevant. Hamlet is no longer sunk in the depths of melancholy, as he was in his first soliloquy. He has been roused to action and has just discovered how to test the Ghost's words. When we last saw him, only five minutes before, he was anticipating the night's performance, and in only a few moments we shall see him eagerly instructing the players and excitedly telling Horatio of his plan. To have him enter at this point debating whether or not to kill himself would be completely inconsistent with both the character and the movement of the plot. The metaphors all suggest that Hamlet's choice is betw...

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