William Shakespeare's Hamlet

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William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, has deep meaning and sorrow to its story. It has one of the most famous soliloquies ever to be written in theater art, “To be, or not to be.” At first, reading Shakespeare’s writing seems difficult to understand and be interested in, but as the reader reads on and digs into the roots of the play, it truly grabs the reader’s attention and makes him/her want to know more of the thoughts behind Hamlet. Thus, the story of Hamlet begins and his personality shows throughout the play and most importantly, his soliloquy.

Hamlet is characterized as being very unsure of himself, which leads to much confusion. He contemplates his virtue in life, something many people struggle with to understand. One problem that Hamlet really struggles with is the thought of death. He is not sure whether he should end his misery by committing suicide, or pursuing revenge for his father’s death. After much careful consideration, Hamlet decides to take revenge for his father’s death as a way to cope with his tragedy. He plans out ways to kill Claudius with hesitation, but knows it must be done to honor is father. Throughout not only his soliloquy, but the entire play, Hamlet’s uncertainty about his plans are emphasized and he is personified as too analytical about what he should do with himself and with Claudius. Many thoughts of suicide have crossed his mind and with everything that he has thought about, he is unable to organize his thoughts and cannot choose one idea to stick to without reading into it so much.

Hamlet is not very certain of what he wants to do with himself. He goes back and forth between choosing whether to live or die. He tries to decide if living while suffering is a better alternative than ending his ...

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...to be wished. To die, to sleep.” (3, 1, 62-65).

Overall, Hamlet uses sorrow and betrayal as a way of dramatizing his soliloquy. Even though he ended up killing Claudius, he would have never killed himself. Suicide did cross his mind, but he was too afraid of what may come after he killed himself. He wanted to respect and honor his father’s throne, and knew that Claudius was untrustworthy to the throne. Also, when he poisoned the queen, Hamlet was furious and killed Claudius almost in a way that would make him suffer a bit. William Shakespeare did use a lot of dramatic irony and metaphorical use to make this play more interesting. Hamlet was brave and noble to himself and his loved ones and wanted his story to be told by Horatio, but ironically, he told Horatio never to commit suicide. With his loved ones dying as well, he can be at peace with his life after death.

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