Hamlet's Suicide Speech

             In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the character Hamlet speaks his "To be, or not to be" soliloquy. Hamlet uses this speech to discuss his feelings about suicide to escape the unbearable world. His famous speech reveals what he thinks about his human condition in the cruel world. .
             Hamlet starts his speech with, "To be, or not to be," in other words, to live or not to live. He is trying to solve the problem of whether to commit suicide or not. He takes into consideration the moral consequences of living and dying. Hamlet does not know if the afterlife is better or worse than the current world. He compares death to sleep and believes it may end "heart-aches," "natural shocks," pain, and suffering that it may bring. Hamlet believes that his dreams may be what death could be like, but there is no way to know the truth. In the sentence, "a consummation Devoutly to be wished," he see suicide may be a desirable course of action. Devoutly means devotion to religion, so suicide may be accepted in Heaven. There are many questions about what happens in the afterlife. He decides that he is not certain about the afterlife, so this uncertainty about the afterlife prevents him from committing suicide. The "dread of something after death" makes people stay with their suffering life than the possibility of death being miserable. He also tells us that nobody has returned from death, so we cannot be sure of if the afterlife is horrible or wonderful.
             In the end of his soliloquy, Hamlet connects the play's main themes. This includes the idea of death and suicide and not knowing the truth of afterlife. He goes toward religion and finds he is unable to kill himself or resolve to kill Clausius. He turns to philosophy and find it equally frustrating also.