Hamlet Help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?

Question

I have to write a paper on Hamlet's sililoqy from Act. 3 Scene 1. It's the "To be or not to be" one. from that line untill the "Must give us pause" line. Please help me by telling me in our time words, what he's saying.

i don't have enough room to type the whole speach so if you would, please look it up on the internet and let me know what you think it means.

To be, or not to be-that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die-to sleep-
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. ‘Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die-to sleep.
To sleep-Perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub!
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.

Answer 1

HAMLET
The question is: is it better to be alive or dead? Is it nobler to put up with all the nasty things that luck throws your way, or to fight against all those troubles by simply putting an end to them once and for all? Dying, sleeping—that's all dying is—a sleep that ends all the heartache and shocks that life on earth gives us—that's an achievement to wish for. To die, to sleep—to sleep, maybe to dream. Ah, but there's the catch: in death's sleep who knows what kind of dreams might come, after we've put the noise and commotion of life behind us. That's certainly something to worry about. That's the consideration that makes us stretch out our sufferings so long. After all, who would put up with all life's humiliations—the abuse from superiors, the insults of arrogant men, the pangs of unrequited love, the inefficiency of the legal system, the rudeness of people in office, and the mistreatment good people have to take from bad—when you could simply take out your knife and call it quits? Who would choose to grunt and sweat through an exhausting life, unless they were afraid of something dreadful after death, the undiscovered country from which no visitor returns, which we wonder about without getting any answers from and which makes us stick to the evils we know rather than rush off to seek the ones we don't? Fear of death makes us all cowards, and our natural boldness becomes weak with too much thinking. Actions that should be carried out at once get misdirected, and stop being actions at all. But shh, here comes the beautiful Ophelia. Pretty lady, please remember me when you pray.

Answer 2

A rather depressing monologue. Let's see... if I were saying that stuff, I'd say something like this:

"What is the point of life? Let's face it: Life sucks. Bad stuff happens for no apparent reason. But what choice is there? Either you just stand there and take it like a sucker, or you fight back and then you die.

"But maybe death isn't so bad. No more pain, no more heartache... I can see how someone would want that. Like sleep. But if it's JUST like sleep, then maybe, too, there are dreams. And who knows what those dreams are like? Maybe they're no better than life itself."

Like I said... we're not exactly seeing Hamlet in a happy moment there. Hope that helps!

Peace.

Answer 3

He's contemplating suicide, and, as speakers of soliloquies frequently do in Shakespeare, he sets up an internal debate. On the one hand, he embraces the notion that death would be a RELIEF from earthly cares "(...the heartache and thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to..."), but then he realizes that, since nobody really KNOWS what becomes of us after we die, there's no guarantee that his peaceful vision of the hereafter is accurate.

Ultimately, he is unable to reach a conclusion...and then he's interrupted by Ophelia's appearance. As so often happens in this play, Hamlet's endless musings are punctuated by the intrusion of "real life."

Answer 4

You can sign-up to read a modern translation on this site:
http://www.enotes.com/hamlet-text/

or at this site you can click on the words for explainations:
http://shakespeare.about.com/od/studentresources/a/tobeornot.htm

or this may help:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_be,_or_not_to_be

Good Luck with your homework!