Paulina Holbreich

To Be Or… As A Characterization Of Hamlet

Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 | Book Reviews

Hamlet’s classsic “To be or not to be…speech” really shows who he is. Obviously Hamlet is horribly depressed. We have already seen several examples of this, but this speech gives us a clear picture of his sadness. More importantly however, his speech shows his weakness and indecisiveness. Hamlet is consistently melancholy, but he never really acts on it; he just kind of wallows around, full of self-pity and loathing. Throughout the play he seems to wish for death and here we find out why he doesn’t bring it on himself. This speech provides us with a clear understanding of Hamlet and his motivations. He feels that his troubles and his heartache are to to much to deal with. While this speech is not the first time he has mentioned suicide, it does give the clearest picture of just how far gone he is. He seems to be weary of life, as he consistently says to sleep while refering to death. As though he only wishes to rest and forget his troubled soul. It is not that he feels there is too much pain or strife in life, but that he is tired with dealing with it and exausted by his efforts. More interestingly, Hamlet shows here his fundamental cowardice and fear.

He has been going on for the whole play about how terrible his life is and how much pain and suffering he has had to endure, and he starts out the speech on this note. This is the first indication of his weakness. Hamlet, it seems, would rather bemoan his troubles than solve them. He goes on and on about his crappy life but rarely, if ever, even tries to do anything about it. Even in his desire for death he will speak but not act. He doesn’t decide against suicide because of some noble realization (that life is far to precious to be wasted for example), he is just too scared of the afterlife. Hamlet’s motivation for wanting to die and also for remaining alive gives some of the best insight into his personality. In this speech Hamlet elects not to kill himself and discovers why he has not yet done it.

His reason for choosing life over death is also shown here. He is too afraid of the unknown, of the undiscovered country to act on his desire. It is not so much that he is afraid to act, just that he has become so despondant that he doesn’t really care enough to do anything. All of his actions thoughout the play, up through the end of the story, can be viewed as a consequence of his despondence and cowardice. Hamlet lays out in this speech exactly what kind of person he is.

Tags: die, Hamlet, play, Shakespear, to be or not to be

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