(Don't) Be Hamlet

Alex McKinney

10-10-11

Period 6

Hamlet Soliloquy Essay

            Hamlet has felt emotions many people will never feel or understand. Certain situations and emotions in life cannot be comprehended unless they are experienced firsthand. Hamlet’s dilemma is a perfect example of one of these situations. Both decisions cannot be considered more correct than the other, but I do believe that death is the most logical pathway under Hamlet’s circumstances.

            Hamlet is an uncontrollable and emotional wreck. He slowly breaks down as he thinks about everything occurring around him. His father was killed by Claudius, the love of his life, Ophelia, is skeptical in her approach toward him and, worse of all, nobody accepts Hamlet’s mourning. For example, shortly after the death of his father, the queen states, “Good Hamlet, cast thy knighted color off, and let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not for ever with thy vailèd lids seek for thy noble father in the dust. Thou know’st ‘tis common. All that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity.” With absolutely no support, it is difficult, if not impossible, to overcome the feelings that Hamlet is experiencing.

            Hamlet doesn’t just feel depressed; he has conjured an incomprehensible animosity towards Claudius. Hamlet’s father died at the hands of Claudius, and Hamlet loses control of his rationality. In response to Guildenstern, Hamlet answers, “I have of late – but wherefore I know not – lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed, it goes heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame the earth seems to me a sterile promontory…”Hamlet is slowly going insane. It is as if Hamlet’s soul was destroyed when he lost his father, and he is being replaced by an entirely new soul with different ideals. In this perspective, Hamlet has already died, and it is impossible for him to be resurrected.

            After analyzing Hamlet’s dilemma, the logical decision is clear to me. Hamlet needs to kill himself in order to free himself of his troubles. Even if Hamlet were to take revenge on his uncle, Claudius, nothing would be resolved. Hamlet died with his father, but he is trapped as a soul inside a body in which he has lost control over. The confused, corrupt Hamlet has emerged from the depths of his depression and anger to take control. In Hamlet’s last plea before losing all rationality, he states, “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 wished.” The only way for Hamlet to escape his pain and suffering is through death.