To Be or Not to Be is Still the Question

This speech is not about suicide. It's something far more important. Here I present my own analysis, and a broader interpretation.

The Question

"To Be or Not to Be" appears in Act III, Scene 1 of The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. I consider it one of Shakespeare's 'problem soliloquies' along with "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" from Macbeth Act V, Scene 5, as both possess nothing in particular to do with their plays at large. They are thematic: they do not advance the plot and do not mention its events. Hamlet does not reference Claudius, Elsinore, Denmark, or the story at all until the very end, whereupon has been stapled a line about Ophelia as she enters the scene. With this exception, the speech could otherwise be excised and moved into any of the other tragedies. The same cannot be said for "Rogue and Peasant Slave.”

This is just the start of "To Be's" troubles. Dramaturges have been plagued for centuries by the placement of the speech. In Q2 and the Folio it follows Act II, Scene 2, immediately after we see Hamlet resolute to act. He says "The play's the thing // Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king." He's shouting, screaming, and finally determined to pursue his vengeance.

Then, the very next scene, he stumbles onstage pondering the existential meaninglessness of existence, seemingly contemplating suicide.

This storytelling contradiction sometimes leads foolish directors to move 3.1 into Act II, so that it predates "Rogue and Peasant Slave" and lends a more logical flow to Hamlet's psychological development. Productions that have taken this approach include David Tennant's 2009 film and Benedict Cumberbatch's 2015 National Theatre taped performance. I have seen others that eliminate it entirely.

These choices are understandable. They're also misguided. Act II provides crucial insight into the meaning of this soliloquy. It cannot be fully understood without Hamlet's interactions with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

The words themselves are just as troublesome to actors. Are there any better known in English? In any language? How can an actor get up on stage and say "To be or not to be, that is the question" with a straight face, when he knows that everyone in the audience is rolling their eyes?

This is probably why everyone gets this part of Hamlet so terribly wrong. This soliloquy is impossible. Better to just get rid of it, really.

Yet the core dilemma “To Be” reveals is eternal. With these 33 lines, Shakespeare boils down all of human existence into its fundamental struggle.

In high school, I was taught that this speech is about suicide. This isn’t entirely wrong. Suicide is the metaphor that Hamlet employs to illustrate his point. But the speech is not about dying. What “To Be” is really about is giving up. And whether or not to give up is the most basic question that men and women must contend with every day.

The Text In Full

For reference. Whatever punctuation you find in printings of Shakespeare is not original, so I have taken the liberty to re-punctuate the speech in accordance with how I think it should be read.

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. To die, to sleep
No more, and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd, to die. To sleep. 
To sleep--perchance, to dream. Aye, 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. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time?
Th'oppressor's wrong? The proud man's contumely?
The pangs of disprized love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th'unworthy takes
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveler returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of.
Thus conscience doth 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 pitch and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.

An Analysis & Translation: Line-By-Line

To be or not to be, that is the question.

SparkNotes' "No Fear Shakespeare," an extremely valuable tool despite its flaws, translates this sentiment as: "The question is: is it better to be alive or dead?" For your average high school senior, this reading is adequate. This is the thesis statement for the entire soliloquy, so let's be literal:

“To be or not to be" means "to exist or not to exist." This is not the same thing as “to be alive or dead.” Life and death are specific: existence and non-existence are general. This is vital when we try to understand the actual implications of this monologue.

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.

Is it better to passively endure the misery that Fortune sends our way, or should we fight back and try to make our lives better? In other words, is it better to press on, or to give up?

This sentiment is part of Hamlet’s foundation as a character. Duty-bound as he is, even with his mousetrap for Claudius set and in play (so to speak), he lacks the conviction to carry out his plans. There's nothing worse that a production of Hamlet can do than bring the Prince out on stage and have him deliver these few lines with tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect, and a broken voice, crying like he is so depressed that he just wants to die.

That isn't it. Hamlet does want to avenge his father. He tells us constantly how badly he wants to kill Claudius. If he kills himself, he will never be able to do his duty. But he can't. He can't find the drive within himself to keep moving forward. He's an author with writer's block; an athlete who can't find the motivation to go to the gym; an academic who no longer enjoys his research.

Fighting back against Claudius is hard. It's a lot of work. He wants the victory, but he doesn't want to fight the war. He would rather go be an actor instead. That's the point. But he is usually played as simply depressed—I suspect this is because the kind of person who plays Hamlet has never felt like Hamlet in his life.

To die, to sleep
No more, and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to.

This seems to be a paradox. To die is to sleep no more, yet death is also the eternal sleep that would end the pain and suffering of life.

Which is it? We can’t know until we get there. It is a paradox, because death is both.

In this passage, the metaphor of 'giving up' is extended into death. Death is the ultimate way to give up--to give up on life, and all the people you know and love, and everything you have ever wanted.

But that wouldn’t be so bad. With the end of life, so ends suffering.

'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd, to die. 

These two lines are part of the same sentence. At this point in his soliloquy, Hamlet says clearly that death is something to be desired. But soon comes a turn.

To sleep. 
To sleep--perchance, to dream. Aye, there's the rub!

At first, the thought of eternal sleep over struggle appeals to Hamlet. Sleep is rest, and rest is preferable to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. But sleep is not rest. Sleep brings dreams.

These lines can be read as an allusion to the afterlife. But Hamlet has also just told us:

O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

Hamlet has bad dreams. That's why death, if a sleep it is, is no relief: because sleep provides him no relief. He is haunted, metaphorically in addition to literally. So when he next says:

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

We already know the answer. He's told us well. Bad ones.

This might be true for death. We do not know what awaits us after the end of our lives. But if we think about this monologue as instead being about giving up more broadly, this line is still where the soliloquy takes its main meaning.

“What dreams may come” can follow any decision. What dreams may come if we let Claudius reign as king? If we give in to our fortunes? If we quit our job, or if we decide to keep it?

If we choose not to be, what dreams may come? That is why men choose to be.

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.

In a literal sense, the fear of the afterlife is what makes men too cowardly to kill themselves. In a metaphorical sense, the fear of the unknown is what forces us to keep fighting.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time?
Th'oppressor's wrong? The proud man's contumely?
The pangs of disprized love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th'unworthy takes
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?

Who would endure the terrible miseries of life if not for fear of Hell, or something worse? Oppression, pride, unrequited love, unjust laws, bad politicians, and the good done wrong by the bad, when he could kill himself and be rid of all of it in an instant?

Who would fardels bear
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,

Who would endure chemotherapy if not for fear of cancer? Who would endure oppression if not for fear of war? Who would suffer through four years of higher education if they didn't think the unknown alternative was even worse?

The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveler returns,

This is the most problematic line in the play and evidence to me that this speech wasn't written for Hamlet originally. Hamlet's father has returned from the bourn of death; the whole plot hinges on the appearance of his ghost. Still, rhetorically, this line serves its purpose: there is no way for us to know what awaits us after death, just like there's no way for us to know what awaits us if we refuse medical treatment, or let a corrupt politician take power, or quit our jobs because we don't want to go in to work today.

puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of.

Fear of the unknown. That is why we fight back, even when giving up seems easier. That's the only thing that keeps us from succumbing to our desire to no longer exist.

Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

Men think too much, and by thinking about alternatives to what we currently know, we turn ourselves into cowards, and opt out of what appears to be an obvious choice: to succumb to temptation and give up.

And enterprises of great pitch and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.

And it's through too much thinking that men lose their purpose and go off-course. Just like Hamlet, brought off-course between Act II, Scene 2 and Act III, Scene 1, lost here in thought during his soliloquy instead of preparing the players for his trap.

If it weren’t for Ophelia's entrance, and the fury she whips him into, I believe Hamlet wouldn't have gone through with his plans. He would have remained thinking, alone, isolated. All throughout the play we see it's only when he's angry, only after he infuriates himself during "Rogue and Peasant Slave," after he has been given back his love letters by Ophelia and seen Claudius' guilt, that he can bring himself to act. That trick by Polonius and Claudius, ironically, is what finally sets the play moving toward its conclusion after two inactive acts. If they hadn't done anything, I think Hamlet would have chosen "not to be."

He wouldn't have killed himself. But he would have endured the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and done nothing to take arms against them. He would have given up.

Conclusion

Hamlet takes "to exist or not to exist" to its logical conclusion as a rhetorical exercise. While contemplating giving up, he considers suicide. But suicide isn't really what he means. The "sleep of death" can just as well be Claudius' unchallenged reign in Elsinore, or facing the Ghost's wrath; the "sleep of death" is any challenge one desires to face down yet finds himself unwilling to fight against. Life is terrible. Is it better to suffer through it, or to fight back, to seize what you want and act on your ambitions?

This fundamental dichotomy, between giving up and fighting back, manifests itself everywhere, every day, in everything anyone does.

I discovered Hamlet in college, during a period when I could not decide if I wanted to give up on acting or not. I performed this soliloquy at a local Shakespearean festival the next year, and I found tremendous meaning in Hamlet’s words. Over the following years, as I struggled to decide whether to continue in the theatre, whether I should go back to school, whether or not this blog is worth my time, I have returned to it again and again.

These aren't discussions one has with himself in fits of melancholia, with tears streaming down his face. They are a rational dialogue within the mind contemplating the question: to be, or not to be. That is always the question.

Usually the answer is the former. Sometimes it can be the latter. I gave up on the theatre shortly before COVID. I miss it sometimes, but that was the right decision. “Not to be” is not always wrong.

Without Hamlet, I would have found it much harder to grapple with the slings and arrows of my own outrageous fortune. That is the true power of great literature. It helps us understand ourselves.