soliloquy 4

• "to be or not to be"
• Act III scene 1 placing puts the speech at the centre of the play, where Hamlet has suffered further betrayals and has more reason to entertain suicidal thoughts. The speech uses the general ‘we’ and ‘us’, and makes no reference to Hamlet’s personal situation or dilemma. At the time this was a standard ‘question’: whether it is better to live unhappily or not at all. As always, Hamlet moves from the particular to the general, and he asks why humans put up with their burdens and pains when they have a means of escape with a ‘bare bodkin’.
• Hamlet also questions whether it is better to act or not to act, to be a passive stoic like Horatio or to meet events head on, even if by taking up arms this will lead to one’s own death, since they are not to be overcome. There is disagreement by critics as to whether to ‘take up arms against a sea of troubles’ ends one’s opponent or oneself, but it would seem to mean the latter in the context.
• Although humans can choose whether to die or not, they have no control over ‘what dreams may come’, and this thought deters him from embracing death at this stage.
• Although death is ‘devoutly to be wished’ because of its promise of peace, it is to be feared because of its mystery, and reason will always counsel us to stick with what we know. Strangely, the Ghost does not seem to count in Hamlet’s mind as a ‘traveller’ who ‘returns’. Given that Hamlet has already concluded that he cannot commit suicide because ‘the Everlasting had…fixed/His canon ’gainst self-slaughter’, there is no reason to think he has changed his mind about such a fundamental moral and philosophical imperative.
• This has a slower pace than the previous soliloquies, a higher frequency of adjectives, metaphors, rhythmical repetitions, and regular iambics. Hamlet’s melancholy and doubt show through in the use of hendiadys, the stress on disease, burdens, pain and weapons, and the generally jaundiced world view. The ‘rub’ referred to in line 65 is an allusion to an obstacle in a game of bowls which deflects the bowl from its intended path, and is yet another indirection metaphor.
• There are so many pains in life one must experience: heartbreak, oppression, injustice, rudeness, and it would be so simple to end all these pains; you could end them with the sharp point of a needle, but this mystery of what happens once we die makes us fear the unknown. “Better the devil you know” as the saying goes. 
• Hamlet does not necessarily come to a solution, but he does come to a conclusion about the reason for his lack of a solution: consciousness. Humanity’s greatest asset, our minds and imagination, are our greatest inhibitor. Our minds, our ability to reason and question makes us doubt our decisions and leaves us paralyzed by thought.  
• act 3 scene 1
• questions if it's good or bad to end his life; applies to ALL; scared of life after death; says death escapes life like sleep; undiscovered country