To Be or Not to Be

William Shakespeare’s classic tragedy Hamlet narrates the scandal and passion of the royal court of Denmark. A close examination of two passages, “To be or not to be (III.i.556-90)” and “How all occasions do inform against me (IV.iv.32-65)” uncovers the difficulty of tender prince Hamlet’s quest to achieve his aspirations. Hamlet realizes the purposes of his immediate future and discovers that both are great passions of his. His love and respect for his father was desecrated by Claudius’ selfish murder, and Hamlet swears to avenge his father’s death and take Claudius’ life. Hamlet’s relationship with Ophelia is the other source of passion in his life, and her rejection leads him to madness—he feels lost without the love that fueled his life. The intensity of the combination of these two overwhelms Hamlet, and he begins to fear his life’s purposes. This fear causes Hamlet to step back and evaluate his (and man’s) existence. In doing so, Hamlet concludes that a good man lives each day of his life with passion and conviction, and a coward feigns passion yet has none, living his entire life in fear of the suffering true passion entails. Hamlet believes he is a man of passion—conviction in his beliefs and a firm mind set to his goals; yet inside, he knows he is a coward. He fears the suffering true passion requires and therefore has been painted by Shakespeare as a contradiction—a man displaying the wild turbulence of emotions that results from the clash of conviction with cowardice.

In “To be or not to be,” one of Hamlet’s most famous soliloquies, Hamlet says,

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? (III.i.56-60)

Hamlet is asking himself, is the existence of a man with conviction justified? He wonders at the honor of a man suffering the dangerous “arrows” that “fortune” may shoot at him, and at that of a man “tak[ing] arms against” the “sea of [his] troubles.” Here, Hamlet is elaborating on the insecure life a man who follows his beliefs must live. Hamlet decides that wen a man chooses to follow his visions, he decides his goals and aspirations are worthy of his suffering.