Exploring Hamlet's 'To Be or Not To Be' Soliloquy

The fourth soliloquy is the most famous. In Act three, scene one we hear Hamlet say the famous lines, “ To be or not to be”. This is by far the most famous part of the whole play. This quote can be found all over the internet, gift shops, and anywhere else that Hamlet is talked about. This soliloquy is so famous because many people have their own interpretations of what this quote means. “One might say that everybody knows it, and that everybody knows what it means: and everybody knows wrong” (Murry, John) The real meaning behind this quote is that Hamlet wants to know if he should commit suicide or not. Through the play most of Hamlet’s soliloquies deal with Hamlet’s ideas of committing suicide ,lack of emotional stability or seeking revenge on his uncle. It is in this soliloquy that he verbally expresses the idea of suicide. To himself, suicide seems like a halfway decent option. It would relieve him of the pain he is facing from his father’s

When you are dead, you are avoiding all problems. Although death and sleep are similar in ways, they are quite different. With sleeping you are avoiding all problems, but when you wake up you still have to deal with them. Hamlet also says that “ for in that sleep of death what dreams may come”(Act 3, Scene 1) Hamlet is hoping that if he dies he may have better dreams. He hopes that we would no longer have dreams of death, and other miserable things. Anything must be better than having dreams of death.In a way I believe that if things could have gone his way, his mother would have never gotten remarried. She would have stayed single and actually tried to help Hamlet through the pain he was experiencing. I also think he is not only angry about his mother getting remarried but also angry that his own mother has not been there for him. Not once in the play do we see Hamlet’s mother try and talk to him about what happened to his dad, and make sure that he is