"(Don't) Be Hamlet"

“To be or not to be-that is the question:” Hamlet is stuck in between what many of us call a rock and a hard place. He is given two choices, kill his uncle who killed his father, or kill himself and forget about the entirety of his life altogether. Both options include someone dying and there is no middle road to take either. He is being overwhelmed by the current events that are happening and doesn’t know which course of action to take. He believes that suicide is the easier course of action because he thinks that by ending himself, he will end all his worldly cares, “And by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.” Sounds tempting but part of him is drawn by duty or conscience to live and carry out his fathers ghost’s wishes.

            Though the thought of death may be pleasing to Hamlet, he is still scared about dying as seen when he laments, “But that the fear of something after death,” he doesn’t know if things will get better or if he will be at peace if he just dies. He also has the lovely memory of his father’s ghost saying it was being tortured to add more to his fears.

            I honestly think that Hamlet should carry out the murder of his uncle. That way his beloved father can finally rest in peace and the wrongs that have been committed will be righted. Also as a nifty motivator, since Hamlet is of the Christian faith, his conscience reminds him that if he doesn’t do this and kills himself then he will probably be going straight to the place of fire and brimstone for all eternity. “Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.” Hamlet is motivated by fear and a little bit by duty. This choice is an extremely tough one to make because his father died, mom re-married to his uncle, Ophelia is in love with him, and the ghost of his father decides to drop by and tell him his uncle killed him. All this happened in the space of a month or so. No one can blame Hamlet for being so overwhelmed. I had a similar situation by trying to juggle more AP classes than I could manage and the stress nearly tore me apart. If Hamlet does make it through this ordeal, he will see how strong of a person he has become and be glad he did made it. After all, what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.