Act Three, Scene One
Hamlet’s ‘crafty madness is discussed. Claudius reveals his guilt to the audience. Hamlet delivers his third soliloquy: ‘To be or not to be...’. Claudius and Polonius eavesdrop on Ophelia and Hamlet’s conversation, which breaks up in bitterness. Ophelia expresses his despair. Claudius resolves to deal with Hamlet by sending him to England.
Unlike other soliloquies, this speech does not consider the play’s action. Concentrates on general philosophical musing on some of the play’s main themes- the moral legitimacy of suicide in an unbearably painful world; the difficulty of knowledge; introspection; isolation.
To be, or not to be: that is the question: To live, or to die. This is the problem/ question that Hamlet considers in this soliloquy.
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? Here Hamlet considers whether it is better to suffer life’s misfortunes ‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’, or to actively seek to end one’s troubles. The metaphor ‘to take arms against a sea of troubles, /And by opposing end them’ compares the idea of hopeless resistance to life’s ills to the futility of fighting against the sea. This captures Hamlet’s feelings of being unequal to the task that has been assigned to him.
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 wish'd. Hamlet compares death to sleep and thinks of the end to suffering, pain, and uncertainty it might bring. However, ‘Devoutly’ is a religious word, which suggests that there is more than simply an end to suffering to be considered.
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: Hamlet alters his metaphor of sleep to include the possibility of dreaming; he says that the dreams that may come in the sleep of death are daunting, that they “must give us pause.” ‘Rub’ – obstacle This mortal coil- this earthly life/ physical body/ earthly suffering
there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life; Hamlet decides that it is this uncertainty and fear about the nature of the afterlife that makes us stretch out the suffering of life so long.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, A powerful metaphor which depicts Time as whipping suffering humans and exposing us to scorn. In Elizabethan times, criminals were whipped in public. This image is being used to introduce the sufferings that humans would endure in their lives.
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? Here Hamlet lists a series of the scorns of times, ranging from lovesickness to hard work to political oppression, and asks who would choose to bear those miseries if he could bring himself peace with a knife. ‘Quietus’ -peace ‘Bodkin’ - dagger
But that the dread of something after death, The undiscover'd 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? Hamlet decides that it is terror /dread of the afterlife which makes people submit to the suffering of their lives rather than go to another state of existence which might be even more miserable.
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 pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action. Consideration of the uncertainty of the afterlife leads to excessive moral sensitivity, which makes action impossible. This mirrors Hamlet’s own situation where uncertainty over the Ghost’s identity leads him to contemplation and prevents him from acting.