Hamlet’s Soliloquies: Death, Revenge, and Frailty
Hamlet’s Soliloquies: Unveiling Inner Turmoil
Hamlet refers to the world as an “unweeded garden” in which rank and gross things grow in abundance. He bemoans the fact that he cannot commit suicide, explaining in lines 335-336 that “self-slaughter” is not an option because it is forbidden by God. In the first two lines of the soliloquy, he wishes that his physical self might cease to exist on its own, without requiring him to commit a mortal sin: “O that this too too solid flesh would melt, / Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!” Though saddened by his father’s death, the larger cause of Prince Hamlet’s misery is Queen Gertrude’s disloyal marriage to his uncle. She announces the new marriage when barely a month has passed since his biological father’s death. Hamlet mourns that even “a beast would have mourned a little longer.” Additionally, he considers this marriage to be an incestuous affair, since his mother is marrying her dead husband’s brother.
This soliloquy shows Hamlet’s deep affection for the late King Hamlet. It also paints the dead king as a loving husband and a respected father and further serves to demonstrate to the audience the hasty nature of Queen Gertrude’s second marriage, which she announces without mourning for a respectable period of time. Hamlet scorns his mother, but accuses her of weakness rather than malice with the line: “Frailty, thy name is woman!” He concludes the soliloquy by voicing his frustration that he must keep his objections to himself.
“To be or not to be”: Contemplating Life and Death
In the “To be or not to be” soliloquy, Hamlet contemplates suicide. He compares death to sleep, which he thinks wouldn’t be so bad. The only catch is that we might have dreams when dead—bad dreams. Of course, we’d escape a lot by being dead, like being spurned in love. This is what the “slings and arrows” bit is all about. He’s saying being in love is like being hit with thousands of arrows because it hurts so much. Plus, Hamlet feels betrayed by his mom because she married so soon after his dad’s death, and to his dad’s murderer, no less.
But then Hamlet wonders if it’s better to put up with the bad things you know about in life than to run off into death’s “undiscovered country.” His problem is that he doesn’t want to keep on living when he is super depressed about his uncle killing his dad and marrying his mom, but he doesn’t know what death will bring, and that’s scary, too. He could totally end up a mopey, creepy, lonely ghost like his dad.
“O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!”: Self-Reproach and Inaction
In “O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!”, in addition to revealing Hamlet’s plot to catch the king in his guilt, Hamlet’s second soliloquy uncovers the very essence of Hamlet’s true conflict. He is undeniably committed to seeking revenge for his father, yet he cannot act on behalf of his father due to his revulsion toward extracting that cold and calculating revenge. Hamlet’s sense of himself as a coward is derived from a crude, simplistic judgment turning on whether or not he has yet taken any action against the man who murdered his father. His self-condemnation takes several bizarre forms, including histrionic imaginings of a series of demeaning insults that he absorbs like a coward because he feels he has done nothing to take revenge on Claudius.
Characters
- Claudius: King of Denmark
- Hamlet: Son to the late king, and nephew to the present king
- Polonius: Lord Chamberlain
- Horatio: Friend of Hamlet
- Laertes and Ophelia: Children of Polonius
- Voltimand, Cornelius, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Osric: Courtiers
- Marcellus & Barnardo: Officers
- Francisco: Soldier