Saturday, 12 June 2010

What does "To be, or not to be" mean (from William Shakespeare's Hamlet)?

"To be, or not to
be" is arguably 's most famous line. Found in  (3.1.56),is considering
life. He finds that life may not be worth living if it continues to be so challenging. Hamlet is
questioning whether he should move forward with his plan to murder(the one responsible for his
father's death) or end his own life. 

"To be" refers to the verb
"being" in regards to existence. Hamlet is essentially questioning if he should
continue his own insufferable existence or end his pain. Unfortunately, Hamlet also questions
what the afterlife holds. His fears of the unknown force him to consider which is the
"lesser of two evils" (when given two bad choices, one tends to be "less
bad" than the other), ending the life of Claudius or his own. 

No comments:

Post a Comment

To what degree were the U.S., Great Britain, Germany, the USSR, and Japan successful in regards to their efforts in economic mobilization during the...

This is an enormous question that can't really be answered fully in this small space. But a few generalizations can be made. Bo...