I think people often miss the real point of “To Be or Not to Be.”

I feel like people often misconstrue the famous “To be or not to be” speech in context of the bigger show. There’s more to it than the first few lines. I feel like I often see it interpreted as being this big moment where he contemplates suicide, but the thing is, this scene is in Act 3 of the play. He’s already been through a lot. This cannot be the first time Hamlet contemplates suicide, especially given the first soliloquy (”O that this too, too solid(sullied) flesh would melt/ Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!/ Or that the Everlasting had not fixed his canon ‘gainst self-slaughter!”) From the very start of the play, before even witnessing the ghost, he’s been longing for the release of death.

What’s special about “To be or not to be” isn’t that he contemplates suicide, it’s that he contemplates the ramifications of suicide, the consequences beyond just the fact that it is forbidden. It’s someone who has longed for death wrangling with the idea that death might be even worse than life. “To be or not to be” is  essentially, kind of the first time in this play he’s thought about wanting to NOT die. (Remember when he told Horatio, “I do not set my life in a pin’s fee” before seeing the ghost, or when he joked to Polonius about how willingly he would part with his life?)

Yeah, the first bit of the speech is him talking about death lovingly as a sleep, a rest, but then he realizes that if death is a sleep, he may still ‘dream’– experience an afterlife that is more like a nightmare than anything restful. The whole second half refers to the terror of ‘the undiscover’d country from whose bourn no traveller returns.’ 

Hamlet has recently seen the ghost of his beloved father, who is sadly doomed to walk the earth because he was murdered before he got a chance to pray and have his sins forgiven, so he’s unable to go to heaven. He seems lonely and Hamlet expresses pity and concern for him (”Alas, poor ghost!”) and promises to remember him. How could he not remember his father’s miserable end now– and for someone who just wants to end it all, what could be more terrifying than being trapped to only half-exist forever? Hamlet already basically feels like a ghost of his former self; he doesn’t want that feeling to last forever. 

Yet what if this wasn’t even his father’s ghost but a demon sent to trick him into committing murder or stealing his soul? How can he trust something so impossible, so beyond his philosophy, as a ghost? Now he’s stuck in this place of fear and uncertainty with a nearly-impossible task to do from an uncertain entity. He wants to die, but he’s afraid to die. He’s a big old mess.

It’s also worth noting that this speech is the next time we see Hamlet AFTER he makes the plan to trap Claudius with the players’ performance. He knows that’s risky behavior and could get him in hot water– that Claudius has already sneakily murdered once and could kill him next. Hamlet isn’t sure he can pull off the ghost’s task for him without getting killed, but he thinks this trick could be the perfect first step to make sure that that really was his father’s ghost. If the ghost was telling the truth, then Claudius does deserve to die. This cautious procrastination of his in arranging the scheme with the players directly ties into what he says in “to be or not to be” about how “ enterprises of great pith and moment/ With this regard their currents turn awry,/ And lose the name of action.” He’s talking of fear of death stopping people from accomplishing their goals in general in this moment, not just about whether or not to commit suicide, and about this risky thing he’s about to do.

Obviously, this speech is famous for a reason, and a lot hinges on it, but since it does come at this odd moment in the play, I think it can often stick out like a sore thumb. Just thought I would put my own two cents in.

Now, this is just personal for me, but  when I played Hamlet, I approached him as someone going from feeling trapped, hopeless, and craving death to someone who has to learn how to take control of his agency and learn what power he has, both to fix things and to destroy things. 

I  feel like when he comes back from his trip overseas, he is more confident and more direct than he has ever been before, more willing to take action, whether for better or for worse, because he has seen that he is capable of taking life and executing his own plans and finally feels ready to take on Claudius,. That's the arc that I used to approach his character, and my Hamlet actually did NOT want to die at the end of the play, but used his last moments to take control of the situation he was in with a clarity of purpose. So having "To Be" almost halfway through the show is perfect for me as the hinge to that arc-- the moment when he feels the most afraid to carry out this revenge, the most aware of the potential consequences, but right before he has taken his first step.