Hamlet Act III: To Live Or To Sleep

The soliloquy through which Hamlet first talks in Act III, is the most known soliloquy of the book, which starts with the questioning of "To be or not to be" (Act III, Sc i, ln 64). This questioning is the basic idea of life, in making decisions there is always the outcomes of doing an action as well as the ones of not doing it. The verb in this fragment could be replaced by many things and still have the same effect. The two main purposes are to show the contrary of choosing one or the other and the decision Hamlet has to do regarding killing. Another way the fragment could be said is, to be a killer or not to be a killer or, as his father would have liked it to be seen, to avenge his father's death or not to do it. This, being the introduction to the soliloquy I suspected that Hamlet throughout his lines will propose the two outcomes of the options he is being proposed, to avenge his father's death by killing his uncle or do nothing to accomplish his father's wish.

Hamlet then proposes an idea that I would have never expected which is for him to die, when he says: "To die, to sleep-No more- and by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks […] Must give us pause. There's the respect" (Act III, Sc i, ln: 68-76). There are many words in this fragment of the soliloquy showing the contrast between life and death, as the contrast was shown previously between doing something and not doing it. The first two words which are die and sleep, show similar ideas, dying is the same as sleeping forever because no real life events happen anymore. When you sleep time freezes and it only seems to continue its natural going when you wake up, and if you happen to never wake up then reality is lost forever. To sleep no more is to be back in reality making the comparison between sleeping forever or dying, or never sleeping and being in reality for ever. The heart ache and the natural shocks are the beating of the heart and the pulse a person has, which are vital to life. Hamlet emphasizes sleep by mentioning it for the second time as the key to end those vital signs, suggesting that sleep is death. In those lines Hamlet is contrasting the things in real life to death and clearly emphasizes that the failing of the vital signs will be achieved by sleeping. The last two important words capture the essence of the fragment because Hamlet wants this pause which will lead to respect. The pause is sleeping and the final goal after life is respect according to him. Therefore, it can be concluded that Hamlet sees that eternal sleep is the only true way to stop the vital signs, ceasing to exist and achieving what is most important which is respect.