The Dramatic Context and Meaning of Hamlet's "To Be or Not to Be" Soliloquy

Author(s): Alex Newell

Reviewed work(s):
Source: PMLA, Vol. 80, No. 1 (Mar., 1965), pp. 38-50
Published by: Modern Language Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/461124 .
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 THE DRAMATIC CONTEXT AND MEANING OF HAMLET'S
"TO BE OR NOT TO BE" SOLILOQUY
BY ALEXNEWELL
Sure,he that made us with such large discourse,
Lookingbeforeand after, gave us not
That capabilityand god-likereason
To fust in us unused.
ISCUSSIONS of Hamlet's "To be or not to
be" soliloquy are almost as varied and
divergent as interpretations of the play itself.'
Different understandings of the play and differ-
ent formulations of Hamlet's character naturally
affect interpretations of the soliloquy, but inter-
pretations which fail to consider the dramatic
context of the speech are surely faulty in critical
procedure. Unfortunately, most discussions of
the passage overlook or minimize the relevance of
the surrounding action to it, an error that may
then lead to problems of coherent or thorough
analysis of meaning. The fault of ignoring the
dramatic context, for example, may be seen in G.
Wilson Knight's approach to the speech in
"Hamlet Reconsidered":
The soliloquy(II.i.56-88) at first seemsreasonably
dear, but difficulties multiply on close inspection.
Commentatorsdifferas to whetherHamlet's
To be, or not to be; that is the question
refers to the proposedkilling of Claudiusor to the
killingof himself.HithertoI have supportedthe latter
reading,but I now think that both are somehowin-
cluded, or rather surveyed from a vantage not easy
to define. Let us leave the opening until we have
studied the remainder.
The thinkingis enigmaticandits sequencesbaffling;
and our analysis cannot avoid complexity.It will be
the more easily followed if we rememberthe root
dualismof the play: that of (i) introspection,deathly
melancholia,and a kind of half-willingpassivity and
(ii) strong government (the king), martial honour
(Fortinbras)and lively normality(Laertes).2
Here Knight establishes "the root dualism of the
play" in an attempt to clarify the meaning of the
soliloquy a priori; dramatic considerations have
been eclipsed by thematic ones. If "the thinking
is enigmatic and its sequences baffling," the
confusions may possibly come from trying to
impose a thematic formula from the outside
instead of allowing the soliloquy to yield its
thematic relevance, its illumination of Hamlet's
character, and its meaning from within the play.
A consideration of the dramatic context of the
soliloquy-how the soliloquy possibly connects
38
Hamlet
with and helps form the action developing at the
point in the play where it occurs-is a logical and
necessary step in any attempt to understand the
passage and define the vantage from which
Hamlet speaks or has his thoughts.
There are, of course, reasons why critics have
largely overlooked the dramatic context. The
fact that the passage is a soliloquy is one of them,
since this convention enabled a playwright to
make a character reveal his thoughts and feelings
without necessarily having his speech connect
with the immediate action. Because Hamlet's
speech is deeply reflective and philosophical, it
has sometimes been accepted as a soliloquy of
this kind, one that is dramatically detached from
the continuity of the play. "Unlike the other
soliloquies, this one shows no signs of belonging
to the particular scene in which it appears," says
L. L. Schiicking.8And he explains that "although
... this soliloquy does not really fit naturally
into its context, it accords remarkably well with
the general psychological attitude of the
Prince."4Implicitly or explicitly, Hamlet's "gen-
eral psychological attitude" is probably the most
common basis for non-dramatic understandings
of the speech, particularly of interpretations that
find the prince considering suicide. John Dover
Wilson, for example, uses Hamlet's mood in his
first soliloquy to explain his mood in the "To be"
speech:
He is backagainwherehe was whenwe firsthad sight
1 The
range of discussion before 1933 is well represented in
the abundant documentation of Irving T. Richards, "The
Meaning of Hamlet's Soliloquy," PMLA, XLVIII (September
1933), 741-766. With the exception of Samuel Johnson's
comments on the soliloquy, comments that modern critics
have frequently referred to, only criticism since 1933 is dealt
with directly in this paper, which has as its main purpose the
presentation of a detailed interpretation, not a review of
criticism. Line references for Hamlet are to The Complete
Works of William Shakespeare, ed. Hardin Craig (Chicago,
1951). Citations of lines are usually omitted for the well-
known "To be" soliloquy, IIi.56-88.
The Wheel of Fire (New York, 1960), p. 304.
The Meaning of Hamlet, trans. Graham Rawson (Lon-
don, 1937), p. 115.
4Ibid., p. 116.
 Alex Newell
of his innerself; back in the mood of the soliloquy
which begins
Oh that this too too sulliedflesh wouldmelt
Thaw and resolveitself into a dew,
Or that the Everlastinghas not fixed
His canon 'gainstself-slaughter.
But he is no longerthinkingof his own "sulliedflesh,"
still less of the divine command.... and the only
thing that holds his arm from striking home with
"the bare bodkin" is the thought of "what dreams
may come,""the dreadof somethingafter death."6
Abetting such non-dramatic views of the solilo-
quy is the history of the text. In the "bad"
Quarto of 1603 the soliloquy and the nunnery
scene come directly after Polonius formulates his
plan to "loose" Ophelia. In the "good" Quarto of
1604-05 and in the First Folio of 1623, this ma-
terial appears where we now have it and keep it.
The seeming dramatic looseness of the soliloquy
makes Schiicking believe that its position in the
first Quarto is better.6 Harry Levin also mentions
the history of the text in explaining his view that
the soliloquy seems "detached" from the action.
"Its tone is quietly meditative," he says, "and so
detached that the whole episode has been mis-
placed in the First Quarto, where the Nunnery
Scene precedes the Fishmonger Scene. But its
obvious place is the still midpoint of the play."7
Neither of these critics, in speaking of the textual
history, adequately considers the basic question
involved here: what dramatic view of the mate-
rial, since the faulty "bad" Quarto was pirated,
seems to have guided Shakespeare's location of
the soliloquy in the authorized "good" Quarto?8
If we ask what development in the play has
most recently involved Hamlet when he enters in
the deeply reflective mood of the "To be" solilo-
quy, we arrive at his spontaneous decision, the
day before, to use The Murder of Gonzagoto try
to catch the conscience of the king. Suppose that
later, in his address to the players, we found
Hamlet not telling them how to "speak the
speech" but explaining that instead of The Mur-
der of Gonzago they will present The Coward
Prince or some other play they have ready. How
would we explain this hypothetical reversal? We
would surely point to the "To be" soliloquy and
say that here we find Hamlet reacting to the
dangerous project he has undertaken in his dis-
turbed condition and discovering why people
sometimes fail to act. Even though the speech
does not mention particular events or individ-
uals, there would be no question in our minds
about its dramatic relevance, for the speech
would seem essential to an understanding of the
39
hypothetical cancellation. The speech would not
seem detached from the developing action, and
the dramatic context-the continuum of action
before and after the soliloquy-would help define
the vantage from which Hamlet speaks or thinks
to himself. The speech would make much less
sense as a suicide deliberation than as a non-
suicidal disclosure of Hamlet's state of mind and
emotion in reaction to his enterprise against
Claudius. The soliloquy would certainly not
make sense as a suicide deliberation to the exclu-
sion of everything else, as Harry Levin, Laurence
Olivier, and others have interpreted it.
But Hamlet says "speak the speech" and does
not cancel The Murder of Gonzago.This fact in no
way changes the dramatic context or the mean-
ing of the soliloquy. Like the hypothetical cancel-
lation, the decision to proceed with the enterprise
of "great pitch and moment" is one of two pos-
sible resolutions of the central problem explored
in the soliloquy-the problem of acting-a prob-
lem Hamlet could not comprehend until he was
actually involved in it and it had produced a
crisis. Just as the hypothetical cancellation would
relate to the soliloquy, so Hamlet's proceeding
with the play has its own relevance to the mean-
ing of his speech and helps form its dramatic
context. The interpretation that follows will test
the assumption that the "To be" soliloquy, like
the other six soliloquies, also reveals Hamlet
reacting to what has most immediately affected
him-in this instance, his first intended action
against Claudius. While he does not mention
particular events or individuals in the "To be"
speech, what he says shows that he is grappling
with a particular problem that is an outgrowth of
the developing event, the presentation of the
mousetrap play.
Hamlet's thoughts in the soliloquy are clearly
' What Happensin Hamlet(Cambridge,Eng., 1956), p.
127.A. C. Bradleymakesthe samepoint: "He is meditating
on suicide.... Hamlet,that is to say, is here,in effect,pre-
cisely wherehe was at the time of his firstsoliloquy('O that
this too too solidfleshwouldmelt')."Shakespearean Tragedy
(London,1960),p. 132.
6
Schticking,TheMeaningof Hamlet,pp. 115, 180-184.
7 TheQuestionof Hamlet(New York,1959),p. 68.
' On the surface,ProfessorLevin appearsto have made
sucha consideration,but he reallyhas not. His descriptionof
the dramaticenvironmentof the soliloquyas "the still mid-
point of the play" is unclearand misleadingbecausehe does
not explainwhat he meansby "still."The "To be" speechis
precededby Polonius'preparationto use Opheliato sound
Hamlet,by the briefreportof Rosencrantzand Guildenster
to Claudius,and by Hamlet'sagitatedsoliloquyat the end
of Act Two; it is followedby the commotionof the nunnery
scene and by Hamlet's enthusiasticadvice to the players
prior to their performance.There is nothing "still" at this
point in the play.
40 Hamlet's "To be or not to be" Soliloquy
conditioned by his disturbed emotional and
mental state brought on by the sudden death of
his father, the hasty and incestuous marriage of
his mother, the abrupt aloofness of Ophelia, the
rotten situation in Denmark, and the alarming
visitation of his father's ghost with the injunction
to act against the murderer, Claudius, who has
usurped the crown. Starting with his very first
soliloquy, before the ghost and Ophelia further
compound and complicate his problems, the play
shows that the cumulative effect of Hamlet's
troubles has already produced in him a neurotic
melancholy, as the echoes from Timothy Bright's
Treatise of Melancholy were surely meant to
indicate. The "To be" speech, precipitated over-
night by his first move against Claudius, sud-
denly reveals Hamlet in a crisis concerning ac-
tion, a crisis complicated by a fear of death, or
more accurately by "a fear of being dead," as
C. S. Lewis puts it.9 (The fear, the dread is of
"something after death," "when we have shuffled
off this mortal coil.") Four main currents may be
identified in the emotional flow of Hamlet's
crisis: (1) the conflict of making an important
decision, which is a problem of acting related to
(2) the way life feels to Hamlet, (3) his quasi-
philosophical view of life as a chance-afflicted,
losing enterprise, and (4) his ambivalent feelings
towards death, which is the danger on which his
problem is counterpoised. Within these currents
flow the meanings in Hamlet's speech, and even
before one discovers that the soliloquy is not as
simple to understand as it seems, certain salient
features make a strong impression and enter into
any understandings that subsequently take
shape. These are features of language expressing
currents (2) and (3) and reflecting Hamlet's
troubled condition most directly. There is, for
example, the profusion of words connected with
the feeling that life is a terrible burden: "suffer,"
"troubles," "heart-ache," "shocks," "calamity,"
"fardels," "weary," "bear," and others. And
there is the language expressing the quasi-philo-
sophical foundation for these feelings, a view of
life that sees it exposed to the chaos of malicious
chance happenings: "the slings and arrows of
outrageous fortune," "the thousand natural
shocks that flesh is heir to," "the whips and
scorns of time." These features make a distinct
impression and under their influence we try to
understand more clearly not only what Hamlet is
saying but also especially what his statements
say about him.
The soliloquy has a subtle organic structure
that helps to unify it poetically and give it the
effect of a set piece, an effect that is in large
measure also determined by the steady rhetorical
growth of the passage as Hamlet finds his
thoughts. Although the structure makes use of
the logic-chopping features of Hamlet's dis-
course, it transcends them and produces the
fluidity of his stream of thought.l0 The beginning
and end sections, comprising five lines each
(56-60; 84-88), are the most subjective portions
of the speech. The absence of first person pro-
nouns in these sections and the absence of refer-
ences to particular persons or events intensify
their subjectivity by producing the authentic
quality of the very deepest current of personal
thought, which flows without making conscious
or specific designations such as "I" or "me,"
"Claudius" or "the king"; such concrete refer-
ences are subsumed within the concentrated
subjectivity of Hamlet's thought. Shakespeare's
language here is perfectly right to help express
the acuteness of Hamlet's dilemma, a dramati-
cally relevant crisis; and the language coinciden-
tally has the kind of ambiguity that prevents
Claudius and Polonius from being sure they
understand what they overhear-another dramat-
ically relevant matter, if it is assumed (it need
not be) that Claudius and Polonius hear what
Hamlet says. In between the beginning and end
sections, Hamlet's statements rise above strictly
personal application, forming a kind of arch
whose apogee is the generalization beginning,
"For who would bear the whips and scorns of
time." The first part of the soliloquy, down to
this line, applies specifically and primarily to
Hamlet, though when he introduces the pro-
nouns "we" and "us" his statements also acquire
the quality of generalizations, a quality which
then develops into the completely generalizing
section that starts the second half of the solilo-
quy. This second part opens with a phrase and an
idea-"the whips and scorns of time"-that
parallel the phrasing and idea of "the slings and
arrows of outrageous fortune" near the beginning
of the first half. The parallelism defines the fol-
lowing relationship between the two parts: rather
than pursue an action that could lead to his
death, Hamlet may be willing to suffer the out-
rages of fortune for the same reason that people
8 "Hamlet: The Prince or the Poem?" Proceedings of the
British Academy, xxxviii (1942), 149.
10Light pointing is more suitable than heavy to render the
appropriate movement. The textual studies of John Dover
Wilson in The Manuscript of Shakespeare'sHamlet (London,
1934) and of Thomas Marc Parrott and Hardin Craig in
The Tragedy of Hamlet: A Critical Edition of the Second
Quarto, 1604 (Princeton, 1938) indicate light punctuation as
closest to what Shakespeare probably used in writing the
speech.
 Alex Newell
bear the afflictions of time rather than escape
through self-inflicted death. In the second por-
tion of the speech, Hamlet's generalization, sig-
naled clearly by "For who" and cast in the im-
personal third person, is strictly an example
growing out of the idea preceding it. The example
(including its "bare bodkin") does not apply
directly to Hamlet himself, except perhaps coin-
cidentally in a point or two of the long enumera-
tion that he makes. Only when the general ex-
ample mentions "the dread of something after
death" and how this "puzzles the will"-in the
parallel question that also begins, "Who would
... bear ... "-does the speech begin to return
to Hamlet's actual predicament. The return is
completed in the transition from the conclusion of
the example, "Thus conscience does make cow-
ards of us all," to the emphasized, parallel re-
capitulation, "And thus the native hue of resolu-
tion / Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of
thought." Here, at the end of the speech, the
concluding point about the abandonment of ac-
tion returns to the issue of acting or not acting
that began Hamlet's deliberation after the open-
ing line. Thus the speech begins and ends with
explicit considerations concerning the problem
of acting.
Special emphasis needs to be given to the
important return Hamlet makes at the end of the
speech to an acute awareness of his own situation.
The general example has given rise to the con-
cluding point, but the purpose of the parallel
recapitulation and amplification of the point is
not to keep the example in focus but to shift the
focus from the example to Hamlet's predicament
in the terms that concern him. This turn in the
speech is signaled strongly by "And thus," is
carried forward by the shift from "conscience" at
the level of the example, to "thought" at the
level of Hamlet's situation, and is climaxed by
the word which tells what Hamlet's dilemma is
all about-"action." In between the beginning
and end sections, the body of the soliloquy grows
out of the thoughtabout acting at the beginning.
Hence "thought" in the conclusion does not
merely parallel "conscience" but refers to all the
thought activity that has occurred from the
beginning. Indeed, there are phrases that express
the very idea of thought occurring: "must give us
pause" (must make us stop and think) and
"there's the respect" ("respect" in the sense of a
consideration, which is thought, or of a view-
point, which implies it). Because it embraces
everything in the passage that develops from the
opening line, "thought" separates itself from
"conscience," which pertains mainly to the
41
example that is only a portion of all the thought
that develops. The parallelism between "con-
science" and "thought" defines separateness as
part of their relationship. The full significance of
thought as the essential dramatic mode of the
speech, a mode especially suited for soliloquies,
will be discussed later, for the occurrence of
thought is very important to the meaning of what
Hamlet says.
The opening line of the speech cannot be
understood until one determines the issues that
come within its scope. The sharp duality of "To
be or not to be" leads immediately into a parallel
duality and then, through implications and asso-
ciations, other matters blossom in Hamlet's mind
in a quasi-logical progression that is emotionally
governed. Hence the whole soliloquy is sus-
pended from the enigmatic opening line, and
since Hamlet himself seems to discover his way
step by step through his discourse rather than to
traverse an intellectually or emotionally charted
region, at the end of his speech more meaning has
accrued in his key question than was there when
he started out. Because the two statements paral-
lel each other through the use of infinitives in
binary "or" constructions, "To be or not to be"
seems rhetorically intended as an abstraction of
the supposedly concrete notion that follows, yet
we find that the consideration
Whether'tis noblerin the mind to suffer
The slings and arrowsof outrageousfortune,
Or to take armsagainsta sea of troubles,
And by opposing,end them?
is also abstract to us because of its concentration
of figurative language and because only one of the
terms of Hamlet's dilemma is specified concretely
-"to suffer." But to Hamlet, who is experiencing
the dilemma and who employs the figurative
expression and makes the parallelism, the whole
"Whether 'tis nobler" consideration is appar-
ently concrete because it brings the particular
notion "To die" into his mind. To Hamlet, "to
take arms," which expresses figuratively a vari-
ety of notions of "acting against" ("to fight," "to
oppose," "to assault," "to employ force," "to use
one's arms" as in swimming against "a sea of
troubles")-to Hamlet, "to take arms" could
readily be a metaphor for his plan to act against
Claudius by conducting the dangerous investiga-
tion, an action conceived in the spirit of oppos-
ing, exposing, and ultimately getting revenge on
a murderer and usurper. This meaning of "to
take arms" is the one most relevant to Hamlet in
dramatic terms, and it brings "to die" to his
mind. At this point in the speech whatever clarifi-
42 Hamlet's "To be or not to be" Soliloquy
cation the parallel duality of the "whether 'tis
nobler" section has begun to make of "To be or
not to be" is complicated by the ensuing rele-
vance of "To die," and in this manner the open-
ing line receives simultaneously its clarification
and complexity of meaning. Setting up words
that remain open to receive meaning created
along the way is not an unusual poetic technique
with Shakespeare.l
Because the whole "Whether 'tis nobler"
consideration is not a simple explicit particular-
ization of "To be or not to be," it constitutes a
major crux in the soliloquy. "To be or not to be"
cannot have clarification until it receives it from
the parallel binary consideration that is rhetori-
cally intended to provide it-and the relationship
turns out to be not a simple one-to-one equation.
The critical problem is to clarify the "Whether
'tis nobler" statement with a minimum of exte-
rior (albeit cogent) supposition and a maximum
of dramatically interior explanation. Since the
statement seems to have definite meaning for
Hamlet, the ultimate task is to arrive at the par-
ticulars that he has in mind, if this is possible.
The problem involved here has been well de-
scribed by Samuel Johnson in his interpretation
of the speech: "This celebrated soliloquy, . . .
bursting from a man distracted with contrariety
of desires, and overwhelmed with the magnitude
of his own purposes, is connected rather in the
speaker's mind, than on his tongue."12 Although
Johnson has described the problem well, and has
a sense of the dramatic relevance of the passage,
his own interpretation is troubled by a faulty
method of finding the connections of thought in
Hamlet's mind to form an understanding of the
speech."a
The connections in Hamlet's mind are deter-
mined by all the implications of his expression in
the "Whether 'tis nobler" consideration, implica-
tions that complicate the central issue confront-
ing him: to act ("take arms") or not to act ("to
suffer"). In his present experience of life he is not
sure which course is "nobler." He sees life fatalis-
tically exposed to the outrages of hostile fortune,
and within this tragic view of life he entertains
the idea of the nobility of suffering. If to "take
arms" against them would end the troubles fa-
vored by fortune, it would unquestionably be
nobler to eliminate evil than to endure it. But
Hamlet feels that he has a "sea of troubles," a
figure that expresses his sense of the multitude
and overwhelming magnitude of his problems.
Who can hope to be victorious against the sea?
Hence "by opposing end them" is clarified by
"To die" and expresses Hamlet's sense of the
futility of effective opposition and the probability
of death as a result of taking arms. "To die" is
11An example from Sonnet 18 will illustrate the technique
in a different context. The open phrase is "every fair" in the
first of the following lines:
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
In the next-to-last line the iterative use of "fair" in referring
to the person causes a backtracking to "every fair," where
"fair" seemed at first to be an adjective in a phrase speaking
of every fair summer day. Shakespeare uses it substantively,
however, and by backtracking we realize that he is definitely
speaking of every type of fairness. As a result of seeing that
the scope of "every fair" includes "That fair thou owest"
(the specificity of "that" also points back relatedly to the
comprehensiveness of "every"), the line "By chance, or na-
ture's changing course, untrimmed" acquires poignant human
relevance as a description of how "Death" in the last line may
come. That whole line, in addition to "every fair," has re-
mained open to receive-and thereby yield-additional mean-
ing created along the way. How the poetic flux can be blocked
off may be seen if the open phrase is eliminated by substitut-
ing "And summer's day from fair sometime declines," a line
which is metrically correct and fits the immediate context.
1 Johnson on Shakespeare, ed. Walter Raleigh (London,
1959), p. 191.
1"Johnson's method is to project himself into Hamlet's
mind in an attempt to trace the movement and fill in the
unexpressed connections of his thoughts. Hamlet, Johnson
says, "meditates on his situation in this manner: Before I can
form any rational scheme of action under this pressure of dis-
tress, it is necessary to decide, whether, after our present state,
we are to be or not to be. That is the question, which, as it
shall be answered, will determine, whether 'tis nobler, and
more suitable to the dignity of reason, to suffer the outrages
of fortune patiently, or to take arms against them, and by
opposing end them, though perhiaps with the loss of life."
Ibid. [Johnson's italics.] Johnson is quite mistaken in thinking
that the prince has any doubt "whether, after our present
state, we are to be or not to be." Johnson's words express the
doubt, not Hamlet's, for Hamlet has no such problem of be-
lief, and his thought and expression in the soliloquy are
predicated on a belief in existence after death. For a discus-
sion of the soliloquy in terms of renaissance Christian out-
look, see Bertram Joseph, Conscienceand the King: A Study
of Hamlet (London, 1953), pp. 111-116. By wedging "after
our present state" into his own "whether" construction,
and by harnessing "whether" and "we are" onto Hamlet's
opening words, Johnson has seriously distorted Hamlet's
expression and has diverted us away from what Hamlet
actually says, to Johnson's statements utilizing some of
Hamlet's words and adding others. What is faulty in John-
son's method is that he attempts to fill in meaning rather
than to arrive at it through analysis.
L. C. Knights makes a similar error by adopting Johnson's
method. Knights believes that Johnson not only defined the
problem correctly but also used the right procedure in trying
to solve it. But he does not accept Johnson's interpretation
and attempts to fill in differently: "Now I feel sure that
Johnson is right in implicitly rejecting the idea of suicide
at this point, and I think that the idea of immortality is
indeed very close to the forefront of Hamlet's consciousness.
But there is that in Johnson's phrasing which partially ob-
 Alex Newell
the grim implication of acting, but his troubles
feel so oppressive to him that he associates "To
die" with "to sleep," and would welcome such a
tranquil release from the afflictions of life-" 'tis
a consummation devoutly to be wished." But
because his death, which seems almost inevitable
to him if he acts, would be another triumph for
outrageous fortune, and because his death would
not end the present evils, it may be nobler to
suffer passively in defiance of outrageous fortune
rather than to die in active but futile defiance.l
Whether Hamlet has accurately assessed his
situation and the predicament of life is beside the
point, since his feelings are real to him. His acute
sense of danger and the great risk of death are
certainly objective enough, for by opposing
Claudius, the murderer who has inundated his
life with troubles, Hamlet may well end those
particular troubles by losing his life. As his
thoughts progress in the soliloquy, the idea of the
nobility of suffering is compromised (as, indeed,
the idea of the nobility of dying in action is also
compromised) by his discovery that thought may
be a symptom of fear. But at the end of the
speech he makes an implicit evaluation that
again puts him in touch with the question of
whether it is nobler in the mind to act or not to
act.
There is sufficient basis now to clarify the
opening line of the soliloquy. The analysis up to
this point has shown that thematically and rhe-
torically the structure of the speech is guided by
Hamlet's dilemma concerning the problem of
action. The examination of the opening section
has shown that the meaning of "To be or not to
be" is governed most immediately by the
"Whether 'tis nobler" consideration and the "To
die" ramification. The meanings and implications
of the "Whether 'tis nobler" consideration have
been seen as facets of the central question con-
fronting Hamlet: to act or not to act, to oppose
Claudius or to suffer. The meaning of "To be or
not to be" is thus determined by the implications
of the action against Claudius, an action which is
just developing and which has yet to be fully
executed. The implications may be seen to crys-
tallize into questions that stratify "To be or not
to be" with meaning: Is the play to be or not to
be?-to act or not to act? Is Claudius to be or not
to be?-can evil, which fortune apparently fa-
vors, possibly be conquered? Am I to be or not to
be?-shall I choose to live and suffer or shall I
choose probable death by going ahead with this
business? In other words, the opening line is a
highly subjective abstraction of the major impli-
cations Hamlet senses and finds in the dilemma
43
of whether or not to proceed with the action
conceived the previous day. It is less important
to try to specify all the possible stratifications
than to see how the statement functions as a
complex symbolic abstraction.16It is very impor-
tant, however, to point out that one meaning
which cannot stratify itself is the idea of suicide.
"Take arms" and "opposing" cannot mean to act
against Claudius if they are taken to mean to act
against life by committing suicide; both are not
"somehow included," as G. Wilson Knight thinks
scuresthe full implicationsof the crucialphrase.The primary
thoughtis not whether'afterour presentstate' we are to be
ornot to be; it is the questionof presentbeing."An Approach
to Hamlet (Stanford, 1961), pp. 75-76.
in fillingin meaningis revealedby
Johnson'sarbitrariness
the same arbitrarinessof Knights,with its oppositepoint of
view. Insteadof analyzingthe languageand structureof the
passageto formulatethe connectionsof thoughtsin Hamlet's
mind, both Johnson and Knights have tried instead to
imagine what the connectionsmight be. In adopting this
method,both critics make the initial errorof assumingthat
the openingline necessarilyhas a single fixed meaningthat
can be ascribedto it fromthe outset.
14L. C. Knightsprovidesa stimulatingand valuabledis-
cussionof the philosophicalidea of sufferingas a meansof
dealing with evil, an idea that derivesfrom Boethius and
that Knights explainshad currencyin Shakespeare'stime.
"It is clearfrom Macbeth,"he says, "that Shakespearewas
deeplyfamiliarwith the traditionaldoctrineof the nothing-
ness of evil." The essentialpoints of this doctrinemay be
summarizedas follows: good is the only mode of positive
existence;evil in any absolutesense is nothing;sufferingis
superiorto the evil broughtby fortune,becauseit is a posi-
tive act relatedto good. As Knightsrightlypoints out: "It
is for this very reasonwe may notice, that Hamletadmires
Horatio:
Sincemy dearsoul was mistressof her choice
And couldof men distinguish,her election
Hath seal'dthee for herself;for thou hast been
As one, in sufferingall, that suffersnothing;
A man that Fortune'sbuffetsand rewards
Hath ta'en with equal thanks;and blest are those
Whosebloodand judgmentare so well commingled
That they are not a pipe for Fortune'sfinger
To soundwhat stop she please.Give me that man
That is not passion'sslave, and I will wear him
In my heart'score,ay, in my heartof hearts,
As I do thee.
Hamlet'sdeep underlyingconcernis with essentialbeing."
An Approach to Hamlet, pp. 76-80.
15G. WilsonKnightis the onlycriticI havereadwhosenses
the multiplicityof meaningsin the openingline, but he does
not attempt to clarifyhow they are "somehow"contained:
"'To be' can scarcelyjust mean 'to act'; nor, surely,does
Hamlet mean anything so simple as 'to live or die' and
nothingmore.He might mean 'to exist or not to exist after
death,' but that makesno properopeningto a speechcer-
tainly concerneddeeply with this thought but containing
othersthat tend to interruptthe sequencesuch an opening
demands;if this be its whole meaning,then it is a poor
opening. Probably all these meanings are somehow con-
tained ..." The Wheel of Fire, p. 308.
44 Hamlet's "To be or not to be" Soliloquy
is possible in the quotation at the beginning of
this discussion. A look at the erroneous view of
the soliloquy as a suicide deliberation will be
helpful in clarifying some of the points of the
present interpretation.
Interpretations of the passage as a deliberation
or meditation upon suicide turn out to be defi-
cient in dramatic relevance and faulty in explain-
ing Hamlet's behavior. Those who make such
interpretations usually do not try to explain why
Hamlet has suddenly forgotten about or lost
interest in his impending action against Claudius,
or why he has overnight had an abrupt relapse
into the extremely morbid state of a reflection on
suicide. Such behavior may be faithful to the
extreme emotional fluctuations of disturbed
people, but it is for the most part dramatically
incoherent. In view of Hamlet's relatively good
spirits the day before and his resolve to proceed
to catch the conscience of the king, there is no
reason to accept the arbitrary notion of an abrupt
relapse as the basis of suicide interpretations of
his speech, interpretations which also fail to
explain Hamlet's abrupt recovery in the nunnery
scene and his lively advice to the players. Such
interpretations close the lines to meanings that
are dramatically more pertinent and that enter
into the lines more legitimately because they are
not forced in. Suicide explications have three
general characteristics: (1) an oversimplified view
of the speech as a whole and a reduction of the
opening line to mean "To live or not to live"-
shall I not kill myself or shall I? (2) a failure to
see that the "For who" section develops as a
generalization and is not a personal suicidal
reflection; and (3) a basic misunderstanding of
the intense weariness of life that Hamlet ex-
presses in his speech.'6
Hamlet's life-weariness, which underlies his
problem of acting, materializes in his soliloquy
into a distinct death-wish as a result of his feeling
that to pursue his investigation of Claudius prob-
ably means "To die." The section from "To die,
to sleep" until the repetition of these words con-
stitutes the materialization of the wish, which
arises from the "To die" implication of acting. It
is necessary, however, to distinguish between a
death-wish, which is essentially a chronic, passive
mode of life negation, and the contemplation of
suicide, which requires an active, direct assault
on one's life. The two may resemble each other in
the painful feeling of life each involves, but for
the fullest and dramatically most pertinent
understanding of Hamlet's soliloquy it is ex-
tremely important to distinguish between a
death-wish as a limited expression within the
speech, and the contemplation of suicide as its
central concern. The one fits coherently into
place in the total structure of the speech; the
other makes a steamroller out of reductive gen-
erality and crushes poetry, dramatic relevance,
and the finest patterns of thought and language.
If one fails to consider the total structure of the
soliloquy as a guide to its meaning, one encoun-
ters problems like those that beset G. Wilson
Knight's interpretation. On the one hand he says
that "the central thought is suicide"'7 and on the
other hand he says of the last three lines of the
speech that "no one can conceivably suppose
that suicide is here intended."'8 Surely one would
expect the central concern to have something to
do with the strong climactic ending of the speech.
The last three lines do in fact bring the central
concern of the passage to a climactic end. The
lines come in the section of the speech that Har-
ley Granville-Barker comments upon, and his
remark shows that he is aware of the pattern of
the subjective movement: "Only towards the end
of the soliloquy," he says, "with
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sickliedo'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprisesof great pitch and moment
With this regardtheir currentsturn awry,
And lose the name of action.
does its thought turn a point or so inward-to
regain touch with the main trend of the action."l9
Knight is quite correct in saying that "no one can
conceivably suppose that suicide is here in-
tended." It would be very awkward to conceive
of suicide as a developing enterprise that has a
moving current and fulfills ultimate ends of "great
pitch and moment." Such language, however,
expresses perfectly the kind of enterprise Hamlet
has initiated against Claudius. The awkwardness
of trying to understand these lines in relation to
the preceding generalization about suicide is not
16Oneof the mostthoroughgoing andreductiveinterpreta-
tions of the "To be" soliloquyas a suicide deliberationis
presentedby HarryLevin, whoseinterpretationexhibitsall
the characteristicsspecified."The ontologicalquestionbe-
comesan existentialquestion,"says Levin, who sees Hamlet
confronting the one philosophicalproblem that Albert
Camus says is "really serious"-suicide. The Questionof
Hamlet,pp. 67-73. If one wishesto retainit, the existential
questionis no less presentin seeing Hamlet confrontedby
the problemof action,for action (activelychosenor chosen
passivelyby defaultof an active choice)determinesthe es-
sence of existencein the generalterms of existentialphilos-
ophy. The philosophy of Boethius and the renaissance
Christianoutlook,however,shouldalso be retainedand are
moreessential.
17The Wheel Fire, 307.
of p.
18 Ibid., p. 306.
19Prefaces to
Shakespeare (Princeton, 1952), p. 77.
 Alex Newell
entirely without significance, for the awkward-
ness constitutes another force helping to effect
the shift of the concluding point from the level of
the example, which has to do with suicide, to the
level of Hamlet's situation, which does not.
The lines that recapitulate the concluding
point of the general example are of special impor-
tance to the meaning of the soliloquy. "I cannot
resist the thought that Hamlet's evasion of the
question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to
suffer... or to take arms? was deliberate on
Shakespeare's part," says John Middleton
Murry. "By which I mean that Shakespeare
meant the question to come before Hamlet's
mind, and meant that his mind should slide away
from it."20 In the lines
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sickliedo'er with the pale cast of thought
it is possible to see that Hamlet's mind returns in
its deep subjectivity to the issue of what is "no-
bler." In its parallel relationship to "conscience"
the word "thought" has something to do with
cowardly fear, and just as "conscience" in the
suicide example is related to the fear people have
of "something after death," so "thought" is
related to the same fear in Hamlet, a fear deriv-
ing from the "To die" implication of action. In
his next soliloquy, in which he chastises himself
for not having acted against Claudius, Hamlet
says explicitly that thought may be a means of
disguising cowardly fear-
Now, whetherit be
Bestial oblivion,or some cravenscruple
Of thinkingtoo preciselyon the event,
A thought,which,quarter'd,hath but onepartwisdom
And ever three parts coward,I do not know
(Iv.iv.39-43)
This passage confirms the association of thought
with fear as indicated by the parallelism of
"thought" with "conscience" in the "To be"
speech (indeed, Hamlet seems to restate his
previously acquired insight about "thought"). In
the lines under consideration, "pale" is thus
related on one side to cowardly fear ("thought")
and on the other to "sicklied." The hue that is
native to resolution is necessarily a color asso-
ciated with health because this hue contrasts the
"pale cast" which occurs when resolution is
"sicklied o'er" by thought. The implicit value is
that the healthy hue is preferable to the sicklied
state, and it follows that resolution is preferable
to pale fear, and that to act is nobler than not to
act out of fear, even if there is the risk of death in
action. This implicit evaluation made at the end
of the soliloquy revives and balances the "no-
45
bler" consideration at the beginning, a balance
that includes "conscience" (as reflection) looking
back to "suffer in the mind," and "resolution," in
the next line, relating to the earlier "take arms."
The implicit evaluation made in the deeply sub-
jective ending, where Hamlet returns to what
concerns him most intimately, is another feature
of the patterned structure and poetic order of the
passage. John Middleton Murry's notion does
not stand up. Hamlet ultimately did not evade
the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to
suffer... or take arms? On the contrary, he
thought the question through to a definite,
though implicit, conclusion. As he seems to con-
firm in the lines quoted from his next soliloquy,
what Hamlet may have evaded, at least at the
beginning of the "To be" speech, is the full recog-
nition of his fear of acting. In his thinking about
whether it was nobler to suffer or to take arms,
any wisdom in Hamlet's considerations may have
been more apparent than real, with perhaps only
one-fourth wisdom in relation to the three-
fourths of his thought that might have been and
probably was an unconscious symptom of fear.
But this last point gives entirely the wrong
impression of the significance of deeply subjec-
tive thought as the pronounced dramatic mode of
a speech about a dramatically crucial question-
to act or not to act. As I have said, Hamlet seems
to discover his way step by step through his
discourse rather than to traverse an intellectually
or emotionally charted region. By the time that
he discovers that thought may be a symptom of
fear, he has seen more deeply into the mystery of
human personality, for as Professor Kenneth
Muir points out, "In one aspect, Hamlet is a play
about the mystery and impenetrability of human
personality."2i The mystery of human personal-
ity is inextricably related to the mystery of the
meaning of human behavior, which is governed
by-and points to-the deepest currents of per-
sonality. This is why the problem of action that
Hamlet faces in the "To be" speech registers so
profoundly as a fundamental confrontation of the
mystery of personality-and of life-which seeks
to have its mystery relieved and its significance
confirmed by significant action. Suicide is the
negation of the significance of action as a means
of having an accord with the sometimes very
painful mystery, which threatens to become over-
whelming. Hamlet's soliloquy shows him not
contemplating suicide, but wrestling with the
20
Shakespeare (London, 1954), p. 262.
n Shakespeare: The Great Tragedies, ed. Bonamy Dobr6e
(London, 1961), p. 11.
46 Hamlet's "To be or not to be" Soliloquy
painful complexities of his experience of life and
trying to determine the course of action that will
be the most noble resolution of those complexi-
ties, which cumulatively are almost too much for
him. In the course of his thoughts he gains in-
sight into how a terrible dilemma "puzzles the
will"-renders us unable to exercise will actively
and decisively-"And makes us rather bear those
ills we have / Than fly to others that we know
not of." Such insight into how a passive, unwilled
endurance may result from an acute dilemma
enables him to recognize that thinking may be
three-fourths fear in disguise. But, ironically,
thinking has produced this important insight
about thought as a symptom of fear, and it is this
insight that enables Hamlet to solve his immedi-
ate crisis by reviving the resolution to act that
had spontaneously emerged the previous day.
Hence in the nunnery scene Hamlet warns Po-
lonius, "Those that are married already, all but
one, shall live," and Claudius, who is also listen-
ing, detects "some danger." And when Hamlet
gives instructions to the players, there is the tone
of decisive resolve in his telling them: "Speak
the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you,
trippingly on the tongue." Proceeding with his
planned action resolves Hamlet's major crisis, for
he never again faces such an acute dilemma.
In the preceding paragraph it might be ob-
jected that the interpretation I have presented
does not allow the phrases "puzzles the will" and
"makes us rather bear those ills we have / Than
fly to others" to be applied to Hamlet because
they occur in the context of the general example.
The test of an interpretation is undoubtedly in its
just handling of details. While I have not con-
sidered all possible details in this discussion, I
have attempted to be thorough in the examina-
tion of the most essential matters, even at the
risk of sometimes appearing laborious. The rele-
vance to Hamlet of "makes us rather bear those
ills we have / Than fly to others" is most immedi-
ately explained by the terms of the relationship
clarified above in discussing the general structure
of the soliloquy: rather than pursue an action
that could lead to death and what is fearful after
death, Hamlet may be willing to suffer the ills of
fortune for the same reason that people bear the
ills they have rather than escape through suicide,
which would lead to unknown, perhaps more
dreadful ills.22The duality of the phrases is also in
touch with Hamlet's earlier binary terms: "bear
those ills we have" ("to suffer") or "fly to others"
("take arms")-not to act or to act.
The case of "puzzles the will" is rhetorically
different. The complexities of Hamlet's dilemma
may be seen to lead psychologically to his climac-
tic use of this striking phrase in the "For who"
generalization which, as has been seen, proceeds
from and returns to Hamlet's thoughts about the
problem of acting. "Puzzles the will" has a
unique effect in its context because, like a double
mirror, it reflects back to the questions puzzling
Hamlet when he starts his deliberations, and it
reflects forward to the approaching concluding
point of the soliloquy. In its brilliant double
reflection the phrase artistically helps to inte-
grate the structure. Its unique effect is rhetori-
cally determined because the phrase ends a
lengthy periodic construction. When "puzzles the
will" finally comes in toward the end of the gen-
eralization, its distinct periodic quality sets the
phrase off and brings emphatic attention to its
own contents, which clearly exceeds relevance to
the generalization alone. In its reflection forward,
the phrase anticipates the approaching turn
toward the concluding point, with the recapitula-
tion that will shift over almost completely to
Hamlet's situation. It should be clear that the
point I am making about "puzzles the will"-
that it stands out with great thematic import,
transcending the general example in which it
occurs-in no way compromises the view that the
"For who" example does not apply to Hamlet,
who discovers why other people do not choose to
die and escape their troubles. There is surely no
doubt that Hamlet's dilemma puzzles his will and
that the soliloquy as a whole reflects that condi-
tion in him as he thinks the problem through.
One can see psychological determinism in Ham-
let's use of the phrase without putting a "bare
bodkin" in his hands or against his breast. It is
only after we see that the "For who" section is a
generalization that it is possible to point out and
account for the unique status of certain phrases.
Another matter that should be considered
before concluding this discussion is whether or
not Hamlet's "To be" soliloquy shows him delay-
ing his pursuit of revenge against Claudius. In his
article, "The Meaning of Hamlet's Soliloquy,"
which also presents a non-suicide interpretation
(and strongly and admirably affirms such a view
of the speech), Irving T. Richards tries to show
that the basic meaning of the soliloquy concerns
Hamlet's fear of committing a sinful murder if he
acts against Claudius before verifying the ghost.
"Act I closes with this conviction," says Rich-
" Althoughhe does not refer to it, there is no reasonto
think that Hamlet has forgottenabout the "canon'gainst
self-slaughter"(I.ii.132), which would assure bad things
after death for suicides.
 Alex Newell
ards: "Touching this vision here, / It is an honest
ghost, that let me tell you" (I.v.137-138).
But the soliloquyat the end of Act II, in whichHamlet
conceivesthe idea of testing the king's guilt by the
dramatic representationof the crime the ghost has
recounted,shows clearlythat the old problemis still
uppermostin his mind.
.. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil: and the devil hath power
To assumea pleasingshape; yea, and perhaps
Out of my weaknessand my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abusesme to damn me: I'll have grounds
Morerelative than this: the play's the thing
WhereinI'll catch the conscienceof the king.
Hamletnext appears-beforehe has tested the king,
and while this same problem of the ghost's identity
and the consequentvalidityof its accusationmust still
be the determiningfactor in his future action-in
the famoussoliloquy:
To be, or not to be,-that is the question;23
"The antithesis expressed in the first line,"
Richards says, "is not .. a contrast of life
versus suicide; but appears rather to be a con-
trast of passive existence versus a vital activity of
opposition that in its consequences is expected to
lead to death." The main reason why Hamlet
does not choose "the vital activity of opposition"
-which Richards apparently assumes must
consist of immediately attempting to kill the king
-is not that he is "afraid to die, but afraid to die
in sin."24 Concluding his explication of the
speech, Richards says:
Thus the complete developmentof the soliloquy
shows that the full implicationof "To be, or not to
be" is not a simple choicebetweenpassive endurance
and vitally destructiveactivity, as at first appears,a
choice that Hamlet, who has no fear of death itself,
could make unhesitatingly; but that the choice is
ratherbetweena distastefulpassive enduranceand a
destructiveactivity that may bringthe stain of deadly
sin. His fearof sin causesHamletto choosereluctantly
"To be" for a time-passively to await developments
-"to suffer/ The slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune.". . His delay ... is actuallyoccasioned. . .
by his scrupulousregardto conscience,by his moral
integrity,that forbidsactiontill all possibilityof doing
wrongis eliminated.25
The interpretation that I have arrived at has
an altogether different main focus: the problem
of acting that suddenly confronts Hamlet after
he formulates a plan to investigate Claudius. It is
the complex problem of acting, I believe, that
best accounts for the sense of crisis that the "To
be" soliloquy universally communicates. If, at
the end of Act ii, Hamlet conceives the idea of
47
testing the king's guilt and checking the ghost's
identity by means of the play, it is hard to under-
stand why, in his "To be" speech at the begin-
ning of Act III, the prince should be so worried
about committing a sinful murder that he has
already recognized as a dangerous pitfall which
he will definitely avoid. There is no reason for
him to be troubled about a problem that "puzzles
the will." Although Richards is properly con-
cerned with trying to achieve a dramatically
coherent interpretation, in seeing the "To be"
speech mainly as an amplification of the "old
problem," he vitiates the note of crisis that reso-
nates throughout the speech. As I have at-
tempted to show, Hamlet's problem of acting is
full of complexities, including the fear of acting,
and quite possibly the fear of sin also enters into
the problem. If it does, and if my analysis is
sound, the fear of sin is one more complexity in
the meaning of the speech, not its entire signifi-
cance, and is probably related to the idea of
thought as a symptom of fear. Be this as it may,
Hamlet's dilemma concerns the possible complete
abandonment of action, but it does not involve
any notion that an action against Claudius is in
the process of being delayed, either by "moral
integrity," as Richards says, or by cowardice. For
the presentation of the play itself constitutes the
action Hamlet undertakes, an action that could
have been completely cancelled but not delayed.
Why should anyone conceive the notion that the
play is a form of delay, when Hamlet conceives
and regards it as a positive first effort in dealing
with Claudius, a stratagem that may even cause
him to confess outright, just as "guilty creatures
sitting at a play" have "proclaim'd their male-
factions" "by the very cunning of the scene"
(n.ii.619-621)? Is any act short of the terminal
act of revenge-death of the enemy-to be con-
strued as "delay"?
With or without the report of the ghost-and
even if he had believed the ghost without any
subsequent reservations-Hamlet would need to
obtain evidence against Claudius (or anyone
else) in order to be justified in public for taking
his life and claiming the crown. A secret murder
would undoubtedly point to the person "most
immediate to our [Claudius'] throne" (I.ii.109),
and he would not want to demean his revenge by
making it appear like an assassination to obtain
power: "Report me and my cause aright to the
unsatisfied" (v.ii.350-351), he tells Horatio with
his failing breath. Until he learns about the cir-
l" PMLA, xLvm (September1933),744.
4 Ibid., pp. 751, 752.
86Ibid., pp. 757, 758.
48 Hamlet's "To be or not to be" Soliloquy
cumstances of his father's death from the ghost,
Hamlet has no clues to help him uncover the
truth. Much as he senses something ominous in
all that has happened, without clues he cannot
begin to act: "It is not nor it cannot come to
good: / But break, my heart; for I must hold my
tongue" (I.ii.158-159). When Hamlet learns
about the ghost from Horatio and the guards, he
senses that "all is not well," and suspecting
"some foul play," says almost intuitively: "Foul
deeds will rise, / Though all the earth o'erwhelm
them, to men's eyes" (I.ii.255-258), an idea that
expresses an Elizabethan beiief in providence.
The ghost's report about Claudius awakens a
suspicion which was somehow dormant in Ham-
let's earlier forebodings-"O my prophetic soul! /
My uncle!" (I.v.140-141)-but which has not yet
prompted him to attempt any investigation,
presumably because he has not sufficiently re-
covered from the heartache and disillusionment of
his recent shocks, but also because he clearly has
no justification or definite direction for conduct-
ing an investigation. The alarming appearance of
the ghost provides the former, and his report
about Claudius (exonerating Gertrude and, im-
plicitly, Polonius and others) provides the latter.
On the strength of his initial confidence in the
ghost, Hamlet decides without delay that he will
be able to operate better and find more safety as
a detective by pretending to be mad. Hamlet's
putting on an "antic disposition" is in itself an
immediate first step to deal with the situation,
and his decision to regulate his conduct on the
basis of the ghost's report surely indicates that at
first he has considerable faith in the honesty of
the ghost. When the players arrive, he sees a way
of conducting the potentially very dangerous
investigation of Claudius, a way to expose the
truth by obtaining "grounds more relative" than
the ghost. His seemingly unqualified faith in the
ghost lasts, interestingly, until he formulates his
first concrete act against the king, an investiga-
tive move which overnight produces the crisis
reflected in the "To be" soliloquy.
It is a mistake, I believe, to think that the
mousetrap play is primarily a check on the verac-
ity of the ghost, as Richards suggests, rather than
an action against Claudius to make him betray
himself and thus provide some palpable evidence
that might be of use to Hamlet as he plans his
revenge. To be sure, Hamlet's strategy acquires a
definite second purpose that is also important to
him, but in his "Now I am alone" soliloquy, the
sequence in which he gets his ideas strongly sug-
gests that he first devises a plan to make Claudius
expose himself, and then discovers that it will
also be a means of checking on the character of
the ghost. As the enthusiasm of the concluding
lines suggests, the latter idea seems to come as a
confirmation that he has indeed struck upon a
very good plan of action. After he has berated
himself and formulated his plan, the idea seems
to come as an important additional thought, not
as something "uppermost in his mind," as Rich-
ards states; it comes as an expression of fear, fear
of a damning sin, but it conceivably arises also as
a symptom of a more general fear, for in berating
himself, he asks, "Am I a coward?" (n.ii.598).26
Although the form of his strategy thus enables
him to allow for the possibility that the ghost
may be a devil, Hamlet still seems to believe in
the ghost, who continues to guide his behavior as
though the prince fully accepted his disclosures.
Indeed, Hamlet's formulation of his plan to
investigate Claudius is initially predicated on his
complete conviction that he is "the son of a dear
father murder'd" (ii.ii.612) and that Claudius is
a "bloody, bawdy villainl" (608). And the next
day, when Hamlet tells Horatio, "One scene ...
comes near the circumstance / Which I have told
thee of my father's death" (iii.ii.81-82), he is
speaking as though he fully believes what the
ghost told him about the "circumstance." When
Claudius arrives to see the play and asks, "How
fares our cousin Hamlet?" the prince chooses to
take "fares" in the sense of "eats" and replies,
"Of the chameleon's dish: I eat the air, promise-
crammed" (98-100); Hamlet knows he has been
changing his appearance like a chameleon, and at
the moment, like a chameleon darting its tongue
6 In the "Now I am alone" soliloquy, the idea of thought
as a symptom of fear, which Hamlet is to arrive at the next
day, may establish a psychological connection between
Hamlet's wondering "Am I a coward?" and then, after
formulating his plan of action, thinking that "The spirit
that I have seen / May be a devil." This connection seems
very possible as the germinal beginning of the idea that
Hamlet gains insight into in the "To be" soliloquy and then
states explicitly in his next soliloquy, in the lines that have
been quoted above in the text. The relevance of the idea
for the "To be" soliloquy-and the idea itself-seems
further validated by being thus traceable in a progressive
course through three successive soliloquies in which Hamlet
reveals himself most intimately. A. C. Bradley recognizes the
inconsistency of Hamlet's doubts about the ghost at the end
of the "Now I am alone" soliloquy, but Bradley explains it
as "an excuse for his delay": "The doubt which appears at its
close, instead of being the natural conclusion of the preceding
thoughts, is totally inconsistent with them. For Hamlet's
self-reproaches, his curses on his enemy, and his perplexity
about his own inaction, one and all imply his faith in the
the identity and truthfulness of the Ghost. Evidently this
sudden doubt, of which there has not been the slightest trace
before, is no genuine doubt; it is an unconscious fiction, an
excuse for his delay-and for its continuance." Shakespearean
Tragedy, p. 131.
 Alex Newell
into the air to catch insects (during the play
Hamlet darts words at Claudius), he has a sense
of thriving because the air seems "crammed"
("stuffed" in a cookery sense?) with promise of
success in his investigation. And in the speech in
which he tells Claudius to his face that the play is
"The Mouse-trap" (247-253), the dramatic irony
expresses the certitude in his suspicion and he
seems to anticipate positive results. He never
speaks or thinks directly about Claudius' possible
innocence. From its inception, then, Hamlet's
strategy is grounded on the expectancy produced
by his aroused and focussed suspicion, not on the
skepticism or neutrality of unbiased investiga-
tion.
Indeed, Hamlet is so confident of his plan that
he may even jump to an extravagant and unwar-
ranted conclusion if it fails. If the plan should
fail, "If his occulted guilt / Do not itself unkennel
in one speech" (the one Hamlet wrote?), he seems
ready to go so far as to conclude, "It is a damned
ghost that we have seen / And my imaginations
are as foul / As Vulcan's stithy" (III.ii.85-89).
Hamlet's expression here, which further empha-
sizes his black view of Claudius, is hardly a logi-
cal proposition to which we must hold him in
strict account. If the mousetrap play had not
succeeded, would Hamlet necessarily have had to
conclude that the ghost was a devil and Claudius
innocent? Surely the prince is intelligent enough
to realize that one unsprung mousetrap, even
with the best of bait, would not by itself prove
the non-existence of a mouse in Elsinore. After
the play, in comparing notes with Horatio about
the king, "In censure of his seeming" (II.ii.92),
Hamlet might have logically entertained the
possibility that if the king had not betrayed
himself, it might have been because the smiling
villain had a hardened, remorseless heart, not
because the ghost had lied. Since Hamlet had
allowed that some ghosts, but not all, may be
devils, could he not have concluded that only
some murderers, but not all, will respond to the
reenactment of their crimes at the theater?27
Hamlet's illogical proposition suggests that he
seems to be expressing something more than is
conveyed to us on the literal level of his words-
that is, something more than his intended con-
clusion if Claudius does not respond-for his
extravagant lack of logic, which resembles
rhetorical hyperbole, seems to arise from and re-
flect expectations of positive results from his
stratagem, expectations based on his belief in
Claudius' hidden guilt. He expects a confirma-
tion of his belief, not a refutation of it, and the
main dramatic focus of the stratagem and of the
49
scene is on the idea of making Claudius betray
himself, not on the idea of testing the ghost, who,
in balanced antithesis to Claudius, remains
honest until proven false. Since Shakespeare had
an audience to catch and dramatic action to de-
velop, he lets the audience see Claudius make
the trap snap. Hamlet's first plan of action
brings the expected results, a "blench," how-
ever, not the improbable confession. When Ho-
ratio tells Hamlet's story as the prince requests
(v.ii.356-359), he will make people, especially
witnesses at the play, understand the mean-
ing of Claudius' reaction to The Murder of Gon-
zago. Hamlet's stratagem involved no notion of
delay in acting against Claudius because the play
itself was an undelayed, dangerous thrust to
catch the king. I do not find that the idea of
"delay" is relevant to the meaning of the "To
be" speech or that it is a real issue in the dramatic
action of the play until Hamlet decides not to kill
Claudius when he sees him kneeling in prayer.
The final matter that needs to be considered is
whether or not the interpretation that I have
presented of Hamlet's "To be" soliloquy can be
acted out on stage. I believe it can be acted out
with much more dramatic effect than the conven-
tional rendering of the speech as some kind of a
contemplation of suicide, an interpretation that
is not only dramatically faulty (because it is
dramatically incoherent) but also substitutes
maudlin melodrama for the fullest communica-
27My understanding of this
particular matter is the exact
opposite of Sister Miriam Joseph's in her article, "Discerning
the Ghost in Hamlet": "If the king does not reveal his hidden
guilt, Hamlet must conclude that it was 'a damned ghost'
that wrought in him 'imaginations ... As foul / As Vulcan's
stithy' (II.ii.88), imaginations that Claudius is a murderer,
in order to impel him to action that would damn his soul.""
Her footnote says: "For the impact of the disjunctive syl-
logism implicit here see my Shakespeare's Use of the Arts of
Language (New York, 1947), p. 186." PMLA, LXXVI (De-
cember 1961), 497. On page 186 of her book, Sister Miriam
Joseph states: "The disjunctive syllogism is important in
Hamlet. The prince must know whether the ghost is 'a
spirit of health or goblin damn'd' (1.4.40). Hamlet later
puts the issue more concretely: either the king will unkennel
his guilt, or the ghost is a damned spirit (3.2.85). The king
does unkennel his guilt by his agitation at the play, thus
supplying the minor premise. Hamlet thereupon concludes
that the ghost is not evil: 'O good Horatio, I'll take the
ghost's word for a thousand pound! Didst perceive ... Upon
the talk of the poisoning?' (3.2.297-300)." I do not think
that my non-technical analysis of the logic and import of
what Hamlet says is refuted here. In his words to Horatio,
Hamlet's enthusiasm further expresses the strong bias of his
previous expectations; he has received the confirmation he
anticipated. He is more justified in concluding that the
ghost is not evil because Claudius became agitated than he
would be justified in concluding that the ghost was evil if
Claudius had not unkenneled his guilt.
50 Hamlet's "To be or not to be" Soliloquy
tion of Hamlet's language in relation to his cir-
cumstances. If I were a director, I would have the
soliloquy relate to a manuscript Hamlet would be
reading when he enters, a manuscript that the
actor would look up from and then handle in such
a manner (perhaps tap it worriedly against the
palm of his hand) as to make it symbolize Ham-
let's problem of action and its implications. The
speech would end with some emphasis on the
presentation of the play as the immediate mean-
ing of the soliloquy's last word-"action"-but
the range of implication in the word would not be
driven out by Hamlet's sawing the air too
much with the script of "some dozen or sixteen
lines" he has written. His bodkin would remain
sheathed, though he might touch it at the appro-
priate moment in a gesture meant to express the
ease people have of attaining death. When he
casts his warning in the nunnery scene, he would
thrust out his arm and point with the manuscript
toward the place where he thinks Ophelia's father
is spying on him; or, instead, holding the manu-
script near Ophelia's face, he could confuse her
further by tapping it emphatically with his free
hand, a gesture that would help to express the
special significance of the prop. The manuscript
as a prop might thus be associated with Claudius
who is also eavesdropping, and the play to come
could be suggested. The juxtaposition of Polo-
nius' scheme to observe Hamlet alongside Ham-
let's scheme to observe Claudius constitutes a
piquant and dramatically ironic interrelationship
that should be heightened by focussing the solilo-
quy on the problem of action. The failure of
Claudius and Polonius to learn the truth about
Hamlet produces a forward thrust that intensifies
the suspense of Hamlet's impending project to
expose the truth about Claudius. The "To be"
speech fits into and its meaning enriches a defi-
nite dramatic context.28
CALIFORNIASTATE COLLEGE
California, Penn.
28This paper is dedicated to the memory of Henry C.
Fisherand to my other teachersat the Universityof Pitts-
burgh.I am indebtedto CharlesR. Crow,GilesE. Dawson,
SumnerFerris,Alan Markman,KennethMuir, and Richard
Tobias for readingthis paper and providingvaluablecriti-
cisms.