Sample B – 91%

The second soliloquy comes right after Hamlet’s meeting with the ghost of his father and his promise to remember and avenge his father’s murder. This soliloquy brings up the question of “What else?” (I.v.92) the world can do to him and about what Hamlet should do now: “And shall I couple hell?” (I.v.93) He realizes he has embraced an action of both good and evil. He is taking revenge for his father’s murder, as every son is expected to in Shakespearean literature; nevertheless, he must commit murder in order to punish this sin. Contrary to Hamlet’s belief that this scheme will be the only thing on his mind, it provokes several new thoughts and questions. Thus, irony can be found in this soliloquy.

Yea, from the table of my memory

I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records,

All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past

That youth and observation copied there,

And thy commandment all alone shall live Within the book and volume of my brain, Unmix’d with baser matter (I.v.98-104).

Hamlet swears to make his promise to his father the only thought inside his brain. He says that he will erase all other thought. However, this “commandment” raises several unanswerable questions which becomes imprinted in Hamlet’s mind. These questions become primary to all of his other thoughts. This promise generates the innumerable metaphysical questions Hamlet encounters and questions about the truth behind what the ghost has told him. While trying to answer these impossible questions, Hamlet finds that these unknown truths just lead to greater indecisions.

The fourth soliloquy by Hamlet introduces more existential themes and fashions an inquiry of Hamlet’s subconscious thoughts. This soliloquy begins the transformation that Hamlet undergoes in the play. The insignificance of the traditional plot is seen considering the soliloquy does not concern Hamlet’s personal predicament. Hamlet never employs the pronouns “I” and “me,” but rather he uses “we” and “us.” He is beginning to accept the ambiguity of life and sees the futility of fighting one’s troubles, comparing it to “[taking] arms against a sea” (III.i.59). Hamlet continues to express his disgust with the world by associating life with having to endure “slings and arrows” (III.i.58), “the thousand natural shocks/That flesh is heir to” (III.i.62-63) and “the whips and scorns of time” (III.i.70). However, he begins to question whether “‘tis nobler” (III.i.57) to live or commit suicide. Hamlet relates being with enduring and suffering and not being with dieing and ending. He views troubles and being as coexistent and states that one cannot end their troubles, but rather can only allow themselves to be overcome by them. Hamlet acknowledges the idea that there is both a desire and fear of death. Living is passively accepted for fear of the unknown.

To die, to sleep;

To sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there’s the rub:

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come (III.i.64-66).

No one knows what the pains of death will be so they continue to bear the pains of life. This mystery becomes the obstacle. “Thus conscience does make cowards of us all” (III.ii.83). Understanding that one cannot know what comes after death causes one to keep living. These metaphysical questions Hamlet has about the afterlife continue to haunt his thoughts even after he has answered the questions pertaining to Claudius’s guilt.