To Be.....or Not to Be....

....actually refers to suicide. Hamlet's soliloquy remains one of the most famous scenes in literary history. Spoken in Act III, Scene I, we're given insight into Hamlet and his obvious madness. Shakespeare became notorious for encrypting his plays with riddles and hidden/double meanings. I've always been fascinated by this scene, yet neglected to compose my paper over it during last semester. Instead, I opted to explain the manipulative influences Hamlet's father and Claudius had over their respective targets (Hamlet and Laertes). This leads to my other half of a BA in English: what you should NOT do with a BA in English. 


#1: NEVER write a Shakespeare paper in one sitting. Honestly, you'll go bloody nuts. 


Anyway, back to Hamlet. Let's look at that bit for a second: 


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: 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. 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,
Must give us pause. 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? Who would 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 Traveller returns, Puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of.
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. Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia? Nymph, in thy Orisons
Be all my sins remembered.




I said look, not discuss. What is this? My professor's class? You probably come here for pithy dialogue with enough wit to make it through most entries. Entertainment, not education. Well, Shakespeare can, indeed, be entertaining. 


Never has my knowledge of Shakespeare been anything above rudimentary, but I like to consider myself an amateur. We'll just discuss a segment of this passage in order to convey the message I earlier stated. 


"To be, or not to be" refers to life or death without much debate. Hamlet forces himself to think of suffering the hands of fate as he already has or "by opposing means end them". These arms resemble man's ability to take one's life against the woes or "Sea of Troubles" such as grief, death, love, etc. 


"To die, to sleep no more" connects with the previous lines in a sense that death concludes a need for sleep and the inevitable finish one faces. Perhaps "for in that sleep of death" Hamlet's madness finally resolves. In these dreams to come for him or any person (paraphrase, what up), that longed-for respite from death arrives. That line "what dreams may come" appears again in Vincent Wards' film What Dreams May Come starring Robin Williams and Cuba Gooding Jr. 


What, pray tell, does this movie detail? Life, death, grief. Everything present within Hamlet's own misery. By sleep, these dreams grant those willing a chance to escape "the Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Fortune" and live beyond death. 


Notice that phrase" shuffle off this mortal coil"? Heard it before whether in Hamlet or everyday life. In this instance, debate can surface to if he means purposely leave mortality or by natural causes. 


Have a thought on this the next time you come across Shakespeare and his other plays. Many Shakespearean themes find homes elsewhere in his works. Most notable are deposition, ghosts, murder, and deception. 


Speaking of murder and ghosts, The Woman in Black is out on Blu-ray/DVD. Pick it up for a an eerie trip down traditional gothic suspense thrillers. Starring Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame, this film offers more than run-of-the-mill shockers most horror flicks dish out today. Stay on the edge of your seat and hold on tight. 


That's all I've got for a three-day lack of posting. How about we drop the curtain on another optimistic approach on what you can DO with a BA in English: #59- Star in a Broadway rendition of The Merchant of Venice and see if you can beat out Al Pacino's adaptation of Shylock. He's good. I'll give him that.