To read this or not to read this? That is the question. You probably heard this line being quoted or a parody of it. This is the opening line to what some call Shakespeare’s most famous monologue; “To be or not to be” from his play Hamlet. But we must ask ourselves why is this monologue so famous? I think that people like it because this monologue gives a deep meaning by using imagery.
The story start out when Hamlet comes back home for his farther’s funeral. He wants to head back to college but the king (his uncle) says that he can’t travel back to college. Right now he is in misery and he is on the verge of suicide. During this soliloquy Hamlet is thinking about committing suicide. However he’s stoping himself. He shows this by saying, “To die, to sleep; To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub: For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil?” This means that he avoids death because of all of the unknowns on the other side.
“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.” This is right after the line “That is the question.” That line put a very vivid picture in my mind. I can almost see the arrows zoom by as I hear or read this. And when it also states, “For who would bear the whips and scorns of time.” When I hear or read this I can see and hear the whips lashing out with a sharp crack. And when he also states, “To grunt and sweat under a weary life,” I feel tiredness from those words and I can see why Hamlet wants to quit life if he see it like that. However these are the phrases that make this poem so vivid, give so much feeling, and have such a deep message.
Though the course of this poem Hamlet’s course of thought changes. Like in the beginning it seems very obvious to him that he should kill himself. It states, “…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 wish’d.” Then he eventually realizes that if he kills himself he would travel to the “Undiscovere’d country, from whose bourn no traveller returns.” He has no idea what would happen to him if he killed himself. He is caught in a struggle in himself. Which is better? Living in known agony or going to a new world where his situation could be better or worse? At the end of this poem Hamlet decides not to kill himself.
As you can see this poem goes to a deep level of consciousness and asks a question about life. Shakespeare captures a internal struggle of Hamlet and takes us into a world of struggle between life and death through his use of imagery. This is one of the most powerful poems that Shakespeare has ever written.
