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Hamlet's soliloquy: "To be or not to be?"

  • JohnYamamoto-Wilson
    • Moderator
    • 11 posts
    January 19, 2022 4:07 PM PST

    People tend to see the speech as being about suicide, but there is another, very different, analysis of this speech. Hamlet has already made a long soliloquy about suicide:

    O that this too too solid flesh would melt
    Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
    Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d
    His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter!

    Why would Shakespeare have him go over the same ground again? Let's look at what Hamlet says:

    To be, or not to be, that is the question—
    Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
    The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
    Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
    And by opposing end them?

    So on the one hand there is "being", that is taking arms "against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them". In other words, we can take action and fight against injustice and those things that oppress us.

    And on the other hand there is "not being" - that is suffering "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune". In other words, we can be passive and just accept all the injustices and things that oppress us.

    So, by this analysis, "to be" means to take action and "not to be" means merely to passively accept things. Let's see whether that interpretation can be sustained through the rest of the speech.

    To die, to sleep—
    No more; and by a sleep, to say we end
    The Heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks
    That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation
    Devoutly to be wished.

    That is to say, if, when we die, we merely rest and do not have to suffer all the "Heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks / that Flesh is heir to" then dying is nothing to fear, but is "Devoutly to be wished".

    To die, to sleep,
    To sleep, perchance to Dream; Aye, there's the rub,
    For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
    When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
    Must give us pause.

    = On the other hand, if we do not merely sleep after death but also dream then we need to pause and think about it, because we need to consider "what dreams may come".

    There's the respect
    That makes Calamity of so long life:
    For who would bear the Whips and Scorns of time,
    The Oppressor's wrong, the
    proud man's Contumely,
    The pangs of
    despised Love, the Law’s delay,
    The insolence of Office, and the Spurns
    That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
    When he himself might his Quietus make
    With a bare Bodkin?

    All things being equal, who would put up with all the c--p that life dishes out? Why would we allow ourselves to be the victims of others, and suffer the hurt inflicted by those who despise us, reject our love, etc.? We could, instead, make our "Quietus" with "a bare bodkin".

    That word quietus is crucial here. The basic meaning of "to make one's quietus" was to settle accounts, clear the debt, wipe the slate, even the score. Yes, it *could* imply suicide, but how would suicide be taking arms "against a sea of troubles / And by opposing end them"?

    It seems more reasonable to assume that Hamlet is talking about turning the bodkin (=dagger) on those who behave unjustly towards us and make us suffer. But mostly we don't simply kill those who oppress us. Why not?

    Who would these Fardels bear,
    To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
    But that the dread of something after death,
    The undiscovered Country, from whose bourn
    No Traveler returns, Puzzles the will,
    And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
    Than fly to others that we know not of.

    We don't just take revenge in this world because we are afraid of "what dreams may come" after we die. Maybe there is "something after death" that will punish us for taking such action.

    Thus Conscience does make Cowards of us all,
    And thus the Native hue of Resolution
    Is sicklied o'er, with the pale cast of Thought,
    And enterprises of great
    pitch and moment,
    With this regard their Currents turn
    awry,
    And lose the name of Action.

    This talk of "enterprises of great pitch and moment" hardly fits with the idea of suicide. Surely Hamlet is thinking about all the ambitions that people could achieve in this world if only they didn't involve doing things for which we might be punished after death.

    So he is not hesitating about whether to kill himself (as I say, he's already gone through all that), but about whether to kill the king, an enterprise "of great pitch and moment", a deed that involves taking arms "against a Sea of troubles / And by opposing end them".

    This is not just me rambling on, by the way. It is a long-standing analysis. Writing in 1964, Davis McElroy says he can't remember where he first heard it, but he's pretty sure it is the correct interpretation (Page on jstor.org). After all, Hamlet is essentially a revenge tragedy, and it makes sense that this central speech should be about the ethics and consequences of taking revenge.


    This post was edited by JohnYamamoto-Wilson at January 19, 2022 4:08 PM PST