Question

What do Hamlet's words indicate in this soliloquy from Hamlet, act III, scene I?

Answer 1

Answer:

This soliloquy in act III scene I is one of the most famous speeches in all of Shakespeare's works: "to be, or not to be? That is the question."

The words in this speech inticate that Hamlet is considering death as a very positive option specially because of everything that he is going through. Moreover, he talks about how meaningless life can be.

Aside from that, throughout these words we can see how Hamlet constantly hesitates and overthinks his actions, this issue is present all throughout the play.

The first line sets the topic of this speech which is connected with whether it is worth living or not.  Is it worth all the suffering that we go through in life?

The following seven lines consider death to be like sleeping ( and dreaming) and therefore it becomes a very interesting option, although it is still very uncertain everything that happens around death. "To sleep - perchance to dream- ay...there's the rub" Hamlet says. So what he is saying is, what if dying is the same as sleeping? if so, then we have the chance to dream, but the answer is unknown, so there's the problem, we don't know for sure.

The last three lines of this speech reflect upon the fact that life is a torture because of this uncertainty that we have regarding what happens after life.