Hamlet

A pause for reflection

The soliloquy to be or not to be is very effective because it has no connection
with what is said before and after. A few minutes before Hamlet has said his
plan to prove that Claudius is guilty, through the play that the actors will
perform at Elsinore. But Hamlet is different now and he doesnt say anything
about the plan but he discusses about important questions on life and death.
Also the audience is forced to do so.
The shape of thoughts
His thoughts take shape(prendono forma) slowly through a series of questions
and of infinite tenses, for example: to be or not to be , to die, to sleep
create a distance from him to the action and all the questions create new
questions without a solution.
The choice of existence
The image is that of war, e.g. the slings and arrows (I colpi e le frecce), so it
means that Hamlet has a strong conflict in his mind. He says that it is useless
to take arms against all the troubles. So death is the only solution to all the
problems (lines 8-9). >
To die, to sleep, to dream
But death is also made of two things: to sleep and to dream. The medieval
idea that death will free man from his body is contrasted to the renaissance
idea of the doubt that there is life beyond death.
The calamity of life
Hamlet lists the evils that men must face in life: injustices, discrimination and
political oppression. Man could kill himself with a knife, but the fear of what is
after death stops the action.
A problem of conscience
There is a connection between conscience and the power of thought and the
kind of thought which stops man from committing suicide is like moral
conscience.
Courage and cowardice
The passage makes the audience think about the meaning of cowardice.
Conscience makes everyone become a coward. The dilemmas of modern man
are all here in this soliloquy and the great ability of Shakespeare is to make a
personal experience become universal.