Writing Homework Help. Hamlet and His Tragedy Essay
Hamlet’s famous “To Be or Not To Be” soliloquy, spoken very early in the first scene of Act 3 of Hamlet, comes at the height of all the burdens that have been placed on him: his father’s death, his mother’s quick remarriage to his uncle Claudius who has usurped the throne, his not being allowed to return to Wittenberg, the report from the ghost of his father that he was murdered by Claudius, the ghost’s demand for Hamlet to revenge that murder, Ophelia’s rejection of Hamlet’s love, and the betrayal by his childhood friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern who were brought to interrogate him.
The onslaught of all these “slings and arrows” has caused Hamlet great suffering and led him to deliberate in this soliloquy about whether his life, or any human life, is worth living and whether suicide might be a better alternative (“not to be”). Scholar that he is, Hamlet universalizes the human condition and anticipates what 20th century French existentialist philosopher Albert Camus was to call “the fundamental question of philosophy”: “Judging whether life is or is snot worth living” (3). The appeal of this soliloquy is indeed its universal application to all of us as Hamlet asks which of us “would fardels [burdens] bear, / to grunt and sweat a weary life”?
For your writing assignment, I want you to write a short essay of 800-1000 words (4 pages) on what the character Hamlet (and by extension Shakespeare himself) means in this famous soliloquy and on how it connects to the rest of the play, concluding with how this soliloquy and this play apply to our own lives.
You should begin with a brief review of what has happened to Hamlet in Acts 1 and 2. Then you should continue with an analysis of the soliloquy itself, treating it like a personal essay. What is its central idea? What questions does it raise? How does it describe the human condition? What are the “slings and arrows” and “fardels” that Hamlet must bear and how does he do in the rest of the play in bearing them? Is he successful, even heroic? How does he continue his exploration of the meaning of life in the rest of the play and what conclusions does he reach? How, for example, do the graveyard encounter in the first scene of Act 5 and his conversation with Horatio in the second scene of Act 5 help him understand life and accept his fate and take the actions he concludes he must, even at the risk of death?
Your challenge is to compose a coherent and thoughtful essay on the meaning of this famous soliloquy and play.
