Introduction to Literature
Professor Obuch
23 November 2014
Death and Suicide in Hamlet Right from the opening scene, death permeates The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare, one of the most influential plays of the English language. With his deteriorating mental state after the murder of his father, the king, by his uncle and Claudius’s subsequent marriage to his mother in order to attain the throne, Hamlet is torn between seeking to escape the intolerable burden of existence and plotting vengeance. The play describes the deteriorating mental state and quest for vengeance by Prince Hamlet of Denmark after the murder of his father and the marriage to his mother by his uncle, Claudius, in order to acquire the throne. …show more content…
Hamlet’s preoccupation with death, through which the idea of suicide emerges, is seen most profoundly in dark morbid internal monologue that are shared with the audience. He ponders the moral legitimacy of prematurely ending one’s life and what happens to the soul and the body after death
Throughout the play, the thought of ending his life comes to Hamlet frequently and obsessively.
In the famous soliloquy, “To be or not to be” (Act III Scene I), Hamlet internally deliberates upon multiply questions as he contemplates suicide. Every logical or doubtful step from line to line better expresses the advantages and (cursed) disadvantages. Does the uncertainty of what happens in the afterlife warrant not committing suicide? Is it nobler to live a long life of intolerable existence or is it braver to take the final step into the abyss of the unknown on your own accord? What happens to your “immortal” soul when it leaves behind the earthly prison of mortal flesh? And if you knew what happens after life, would still go through all of life's humiliations? Death offers peace, but the dreaded unknown makes men too cowardly to kill themselves. He fears that if he commits the act, he will suffer eternal damnation in hell because of the Christian religion prohibits it and philosophically concludes that no person would choose to endure a miserable life if he or she were not afraid of what would happen. It is this fear, which causes complex ethical considerations to interfere with the capacity for
action.
It is important to note, that he ends his soliloquy about suicide, as Ophelia appears, perhaps the sign that she would be the one to commit suicide in the lay. Though her death is not seen onstage, Ophelia’s is the only death definitively accepted as suicide in the tragedy. She drowns herself in a river as a means of escaping her own worsening circumstances and her oppression based on gender.
The graveyard scene is a turning point of realization as Hamlet looks at the skull of the court jester Yorick whom he was fond of. In his musings, Hamlet realizes that death eliminates the differences between people. Thus in death, as our body corrodes to “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” and our flesh rots away to bone, we all are the same. “Why may that not be the skull of a lawyer?” questions Hamlet for a skull does not portray who the person was in life and which class he or she belonged to. Hence, the hierarchical structure of society is but an illusion that ultimately crumbles into dust, just like the bones of those long gone.
Even though eight of the nine primary characters die, the questions about death, suicide, and the afterlife—continuous and important themes throughout the tragedy—are left unresolved. Rather, what the play of Hamlet presents is an exploration and discussion without a true resolution. For these questions are questions we are still trying to answer today and will probably never be solved.