To be, or not to be Monologue Essay Example for Free

To be, or not to be monologue EssayTo be, or not to be that is the hesitationWhether tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous partOr to take arms against a sea of troubles,And by opposing end them?Perhaps the nearly oft quoted of the bards words, this soloiloquy by Hamlet in Act III, Sc. 1 (58-62) defines the highest point of the prominent conflict that is going on in the protagonists mind and reveals approximately insightfully the character of the prince and the crux of the matter of his great catastrophe. Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, is troubled by the good implications of committing suicide whether to live and suffer the vagaries of fate that humankind is showcase to or whether to rebel against the utter helplessness of the human condition and end it all(prenominal) in death.The character of Hamlet is of a philosophical and contemplative bent and he is deeply troubled by ethical and philosophical issues that can neer be answered with c omplete currentty. The contemplation of suicide at the height of his troubles is even another example of this turn in his character. Is it noble to suffer/ The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune?, Hamlet reflects and we ar reminded of another of Shakespeares great tragic drama, King Lear, where after being mercilessly maltreated at the hands of fate Gloucester arrive at a similar conclusion about the essential tragedy of the human condition, puny beings powerless in front of an omnipotent and hostile fortune As move to wanton boys are we to the gods they kill us for their sport.Hamlet compares death to long-awaited forty winks and reflects on the final slumber and freedom it would bring to the tired and troubled soul To die,to sleep, /No more and by a sleep to say we end /The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks /That flesh is heir to. Persuaded by this metaphor, he decides in birth of suicide, but soon realizes the limitations of the comparision and the deeper and far greater implications of death. Once again we find Hamlet oscillating and intrinsically incapable of deciding on a course of action which is the crux of his tragedy. Just as he is incapable of deciding whether or not to take revenge on his wicked uncle who had beyond any reasonable doubt, killed his father and married his mother, so is he incapable of moving any further than the philosophical reflections on suicide and actually taking his life.This soliloquy by Hamlet actually brings into focus all the most crucial themes of the play. It directly addresses the issues of death and suicide the significance of which can not be understressed. by dint of Hamlets incapability of motivating himself into action, the speech problematises yet again the complex relation amidst human thought and action. And last but not the least, it brilliantly dramatises the impossibility of finding any certain answers in an universe which is essentially ambiguous.The biggest mystrey of the play Hamle t concerns nobody else but the character of Hamlet, and there has never been any dearth of speculation about his real motivations, his psychology etc. However, the famous Romantic novice William Hazlitt provided an interesting angle of approaching this highly complex charater when he wrote It is we who are Hamlet..Truly, Hamlet, more than anything else is a brilliant metaphor for the human condition a perfect representation of modern man. In his inability to arrive at any fruitful decision to act on, in the overwhelming drama that goes on in his mind all the time making him suffer all the more intensely and in his almost masochistic compulsion to probe the darkest and most fearsome depths of his own mind, he is surely the most perfect figure in literature to voice the most fundamental of all human question To be or not to be?Works CitedHazlitt, William. Characters of Shakespears Plays. http//shakespearean.org.uk/ham1-haz.htmShakespeare, William. Hamlet. Ed. R.A. Foakes. Surrey Int ernational Thomson print Company, 1997.Shakespeare, William. King Lear. Ed. R.A. Foakes. Surrey International Thomson Publishing Company, 1997.