Hamlet’s Soliloquies

Q. Critically analyze Hamlet’s soliloquies in the play.

Q. What are the major themes in Hamlet’s soliloquies? How do they contribute to the major thematic
concerns in the play?

From time to time in the play, Hamlet delivers a soliloquy, or a speech that the audience can hear, but
the other characters cannot. These speeches let us know what Hamlet is thinking but not saying, and
there are seven soliloquies in all. In these seven soliloquies, Hamlet shares his inner feelings, thoughts,
and plans for the future. These soliloquies are the pivotal pillars of the drama and are still considered
some of Shakespeare's most brilliant writing.

1. Hamlet's First Soliloquy

O that this too too solid flesh would melt,

Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!...  (Act 1, Scene 2)

The first soliloquy occurs before the ghost has appeared and the suggestions of a possible treacherous
murder have been made to Hamlet. He comes to the world of Elsinore, so to say, with his heart heavy
with grief for his father's death and the haste with which his mother disowns his father posthumously
and accepts Claudius as her husband. Hamlet emerges as a ruminative, reflective and a private person,
much loyal to the memory of his father and stunned at his mother's incestuous conduct. This soliloquy
also marks Hamlet's recognition that the world is full of both evil and good-a world in which Hyperion
and satyr are brothers. His mother's conduct pains him the most. It is the corruption in his mother's
conduct that makes him feel his own flesh "too, too sullied." It is in this frame of mind that Hamlet
reacts to what life in the world of Elsinore offers him.

2. Hamlet's Second Soliloquy

O all you host of heaven! O earth! what else?

And shall I couple hell? O, fie! — Hold, my heart...  (Act 1, Scene 5)

The next soliloquy shows Hamlet committing himself to avenge his father death. This soliloquy
too deepens his disgust with his mother conduct and the fact that he is his mother's flesh and
blood receives a reminder.

3. Hamlet's Third Soliloquy

Ay, so, God b' wi' ye!

Now I am alone.
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!...  (Act 2, Scene 2)
The third soliloquy finds him remorseful for not having taken any action to avenge his father's death.
There is yet another implied and understated reference to his mother in the lines in which he describes
Claudius as "bloody, bawdy villain! / Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!"

4. Hamlet's Fourth Soliloquy (to be or not to be)

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?...  (Act 3, Scene 1)

To be, or not to be," the fourth soliloquy, is the most philosophical statement that Hamlet makes in the
play and has provoked much debate and is perhaps the most discussed and interpreted. One of the
major concerns that Hamlet's ruminations focus on in this soliloquy is the conflict between passion and
reason. Hamlet is portrayed as possessed of the passion of melancholy--sorrow and fear being two other
emotions, it was believed, that accompanied melancholy. Right from the beginning Hamlet is portrayed
as melancholic. He himself says: "How I weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seems to me all the uses of'
the world." His mother begs him to "cast" his "nighted colour off." 'The dread of something after death’
constantly hangs heavy upon mind and thoughts of Hamlet. And yet he admires anyone who can control
passions and rise above them. A stoic response to the misfortunes of life is something he aspires to be
able to show. He praises Horatio as one who "is not passion's slave." He finds Ophelia, Polonius and
especially his own mother slaves of passion. "To be, or not I Hamlet : Other Dimensions Hamlet to be,"
shows Hamlet holding a book, a characteristic gesture on the part of a melancholic-nothing would seem
to be more natural.

5. Hamlet's Fifth Soliloquy

'Tis now the very witching time of night,

When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world...
Soft! now to my mother...
Let me be cruel, not unnatural;
I will speak daggers to her, but use none... (Act 3, Scene 2)

The fifth soliloquy, "'Tis now the very witching time of night," reveals Hamlet resolute: "Now I could
drink hot blood, / And do such bitter business of the day / Would quake to look on." He, in this soliloquy,
returns to his mother's incestuous, unnatural conduct, refers to Nero (who had had his mother
Agrippina put to death, who had poisoned her husband, the emperor Claudius), hopes to be able to
control his anger while confronting her with the truth of her actions.
 6. Hamlet's Sixth Soliloquy

Now might I do it pat now he is praying,

And now I'll do it, and so he goes to heaven.
And so am I revenged, that would be scanned...  (Act 3, Scene 3)

In Act 3, Scene 3, we observe the sixth soliloquy of Hamlet. It arrives soon after, when he sees the King
Claudius and draws a naked sword to kill him. He comes with such intentions but restrains himself when
the thought arises in his mind that by killing the murderer King, while he is in the act of praying and
seeking forgiveness for his sins, will send him directly to Heaven and this, according to Hamlet, will not
be revenge. Hamlet’s thinks that as he is the sole son of his dead father, and his aim is to seek revenge
and fulfill the promise of his father’s murder. He says that it will be unfair if he himself sends the
murderer of his father straight to heaven and that will be no revenge at all.

Hamlet thinks that King Claudius killed his father in a state, when there was no reason for God to wave
his sins and misdeeds, and Hamlet’s father must have paid or paying the divine penalty of his crimes and
sins. Now to kill Claudius in a position, where his sins will be ignored and he will be sent straight to
heaven is no revenge at all. Hence, Hamlet decides not to fulfill his task this time. He tells himself to wait
for an opportunity and kill the King when he is “drunk, asleep, or in his rage, or in the incestuous
pleasure of his bed, at gaming, swearing or about some act that has no relish of salvation in it.”

In this way, when the King Claudius will be killed, he will have to pay for his sins and misdeeds, and will
be totally accountable for his crimes and that will justify the act of revenge and the promise the Prince
Hamlet made to his beloved, dead father.

7. Hamlet's Seventh Soliloquy

How all occasions do inform against me

And spur my dull revenge!... (Act 4, Scene 4)

The information given to Hamlet by the captain stimulates his thoughts of revenge and makes him scold
himself for his inaction. He realizes that thousands of soldiers are ready to die for a piece of worthless
land, but he, Hamlet, who is equipped with an excellent motive to take revenge for his father’s death, is
still unable to do anything about it.

This soliloquy sheds light on the fact that he has a natural deficiency that always thwarts his purpose. His
tendency to generalize and universalize, to think instead of act, one that can be seen in his other
soliloquies, is, once more, evident here also.

He tells himself that every person has a purpose and they should fulfill it. A man is no better than a beast
if he is satisfied only with sleeping and feeding himself. God gave reason to human beings so that they
may make use of it. He says that a man is justified in acting if his sense of honor demands that he
should, that he could “find quarrel in a star” i.e. accept the challenge, even if the provocation is far and
distant.

Hamlet remembers his powerful motive with “a father killed, a mother stained.” These are the images
that torture him. This is a turning point for Hamlet where he stops mulling over the past, licking his
wounds, and fantasizing about revenge and instead, starts acting on his thoughts.

Conclusion

All the soliloquies emphasize the idea of the delay in the mental make-up of Hamlet, as well as
the delay embedded in the plot-structure of the play. They reveal Hamlet given to self-reflection
and excessively speculative, indecisive, and irresolute. Hamlet also comes across as a scholar,
and a poet. The soliloquies reveal Hamlet's tragic flaw that turns Hamlet into a tragedy and
Hamlet as the prime agent who brings about the tragic denouement: Hamlet thinks too much. He
weighs the consequences of action to such an excessive length that action becomes postponed as
reflection takes the place of action itself. In a sense, one can characterize all the soliloquies as
variations on the same theme: an obsessive concern with his mother's incestuous conduct and the
contamination that he feels has befouled him, too, as her son.

Q. Analyze “To be, or not to be” in Act 3, scene 1, for its dramatic significance in the context of the
play.

The "To be or not to be" soliloquy appears in Act 3, Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In this scene, often
called the "nunnery scene," Prince Hamlet thinks about life, death, and suicide. Specifically, he wonders
whether it might be preferable to commit suicide to end one's suffering and to leave behind the pain
and agony associated with living.Though he believes he is alone when he speaks, King Claudius (his
uncle) and Polonius (the king’s councilor) are both in hiding, eavesdropping.

The first line and the most famous of the soliloquy raises the overarching question of the speech: "To
be, or not to be," that is, "To live, or to die." Interestingly, Hamlet poses this as a question for all of
humanity rather than for only himself. He begins by asking whether it is better to passively put up with
life’s pains ("the slings and arrows") or actively end it via suicide ("take arms against a sea of troubles, /
And by opposing end them?").

Hamlet initially argues that death would indeed be preferable: he compares the act of dying to a
peaceful sleep: "And by a sleep to say we end / The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks / That
flesh is heir to." However, he quickly changes his tune when he considers that nobody knows for sure
what happens after death, namely whether there is an afterlife and whether this afterlife might be even
worse than life. This realization is what ultimately gives Hamlet (and others, he reasons) "pause" when it
comes to acting (i.e., committing suicide). In this sense, humans are so fearful of what comes after death
and the possibility that it might be more miserable than life that they (including Hamlet) are rendered
immobile.

 
Critical Themes in “To be, or not to be”

There are many critical themes and questions contained in Hamlet’s "To be or not to be" soliloquy. Here
are three of the most important ones:

Theme 1: Doubt and Uncertainity

Doubt and uncertainty play a huge role in Hamlet’s "To be or not to be" soliloquy. By this point in the
play, we know that Hamlet has struggled to decide whether he should kill Claudius and avenge his
father’s death. Hamlet is struck by indecisiveness, leading him to straddle the line between action and
inaction.

It is this general feeling of doubt that also plagues his fears of the afterlife, which Hamlet speaks on at
length in his "To be or not to be" soliloquy. The uncertainty of what comes after death is, to him, the
main reason most people do not commit suicide; it’s also the reason Hamlet himself hesitates to kill
himself and is inexplicably frozen in place.

Theme 2: Life and Death

As the opening line tells us, "To be or not to be" revolves around complex notions of life and death (and
the afterlife). Up until this point in the play, Hamlet has continued to debate with himself whether he
should kill Claudius to avenge his father. He also wonders whether it might be preferable to kill himself
—this would allow him to escape his own "sea of troubles" and the "slings and arrows" of life.

But like so many others, Hamlet fears the uncertainty dying brings and is tormented by the possibility
of ending up in Hell—a place even more miserable than life. He is heavily plagued by this realization
that the only way to find out if death is better than life is to go ahead and end it, a permanent decision
one cannot take back. Despite Hamlet's attempts to logically understand the world and death, there are
some things he will simply never know until he himself dies, further fueling his ambivalence.

Theme 3: Madness

The entirety of Hamlet can be said to revolve around the theme of madness and whether Hamlet has
been feigning madness or has truly gone mad (or both). Though the idea of madness doesn’t necessarily
come to the forefront of "To be or not to be," it still plays a crucial role in how Hamlet behaves in this
scene.

Before Hamlet begins his soliloquy, Claudius and Polonius are revealed to be hiding in an attempt to
eavesdrop on Hamlet (and later Ophelia when she enters the scene). Now, what the audience doesn’t
know is whether Hamlet knows he is being listened to. If he is unaware, as most might assume he is,
then we could view his "To be or not to be" soliloquy as the simple musings of a highly stressed-out,
possibly "mad" man, who has no idea what to think anymore when it comes to life, death, and religion
as a whole.
However, if we believe that Hamlet is aware he's being spied on, the soliloquy takes on an entirely new
meaning: Hamlet could actually be feigning madness as he bemoans the burdens of life in an effort to
perplex Claudius and Polonius and/or make them believe he is overwhelmed with grief for his recently
deceased father. Whatever the case, it’s clear that Hamlet is an intelligent man who is attempting to
grapple with a difficult decision. Whether or not he is truly "mad" here or later in the play is up to you to
decide!

Conclusion

William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is one of the most popular, well-known plays in the world. Its iconic "To
be or not to be" soliloquy, spoken by the titular Hamlet in Scene 3, Act 1, has been analyzed for
centuries and continues to intrigue scholars, students, and general readers alike.

The soliloquy is essentially all about life and death: "To be or not to be" means "To live or not to live"
(or "To live or to die"). Hamlet discusses how painful and miserable human life is, and how death
(specifically suicide) would be preferable, would it not be for the fearful uncertainty of what comes after
death.