Sunday, February 16, 2014

Hamlet's Soliloquy - To be or not to be? hmmmm

Throughout  the poem Hamlet, the multiple façades of man are used  promote truth and honesty, more so, uncover a mystery (Hamlet's true feelings). Why Hamlet's feelings remain enclosed within his intelligent mind is for the revenge of his father...but it is more than this. After his father's murder, can he trust anyone?  Act III, scene  i, builds upon this motif of trust and the dismissal from society to remain true to himself and his father. It is also to find himself, and  be in the "Dragon" and discover his purpose in life- should he live to seek his father's revenge or should he live to die and possibly be in a place of hell after death? Hence, the "To be or not to be" (line 62) speech shows the self questioning he must go through in order to answer a simple, yet complex question. Thus, the speech exhibits shaper like qualities from Grendel- what is the meaning of life? Now from the soliloquy, as he his questioning his duty in life, he wonders whether or not there is a point to living- should he commit suicide. Going back into the texts, this relates to Hamlet's words when he says" That this too solid flesh would melt/ That, and resolve itself into a dew/ Or that the everlasting had not fix'd/ His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God." What he is saying here is that death forcefully or suicide is against God's wishes and destroying God's gift is a sin. Notice that he view's God above him, and hence his decisions are based on pleasing this higher being, avoid any troubles that he must face from the curses of this higher being- God. Now, the soliloquy also faces such dilemma of death, contemplating "to be or not to be" aka do I live or not? Is it my duty (again the motif of duty arises!) to carry this burden of revenge? What I question  through this is the noun "that we know  not of". Who is Hamlet referring to when he says that man flies to whom he does not know? This could go either way- fly to heaven with the Gods, or Hell with the demons...but either way, man tries to escape the reality. To me, this whole soliloquy is based on the fact that he must, as a son, take revenge. Therefore, he states that "Than fly to others that we know not of?/ Thus conscience does make cowards of us all." This pretty much states that what defines men is our ability to just leave a situation without trying to resolve a conflict or perform the duty that is bided with the conflict. Nonetheless, because all men do such a thing, they are all "cowards." Just the mere thought we must escape from this life (take the easy route) makes man a whimp. The tone of his soliloquy is powerful yet frightened as seen at the end when he says "Be all my sins remember'd." At first he debates the need to take such revenge, and  now he says that he has committed sins in the pat, therefore to avoid that (the fear or evil and hell) he will do such thing. 

No comments:

Post a Comment