Death, suicide and the afterlife

In his soliloquy in Act I, scene ii (129–158, Hamlet thinks for the first time about suicide (desiring his flesh
to “melt,” and wishing that God had not made “self-slaughter” a sin), saying that the world is “weary,
stale, flat, and unprofitable.” In other words, suicide or death seems like a desirable alternative to life in
a painful world – where his mother’s adulterous betrayal and his uncle’s murderous lechery disgust him -
but Hamlet feels that the option of suicide is closed to him because it is forbidden by God. He compares
Claudius to his father (his father was “so excellent a king” while Claudius is a bestial “satyr”).

As he runs through his description of their marriage, he touches upon the important motifs of
misogyny, crying, “Frailty, thy name is woman”; incest, commenting that his mother moved “[with]
such dexterity to incestuous sheets”; and the ominous omen the marriage represents for Denmark,
that “it is not nor it cannot come to good.” Each of these motifs recurs throughout the play.
His soliloquy in Act III, scene i:58–90, contains Hamlet’s most logical and powerful examination of the moral legitimacy of suicide
in an unbearably painful world: “To be, or not to be,” that is, to live or not to live. He then weighs the moral ramifications of living
and dying. Is it nobler to suffer life, “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” passively or to actively seek to end one’s
suffering? He compares death to sleep and thinks of the end to suffering, pain, and uncertainty it might bring, “the heartache, and
the thousand natural shocks / That flesh is heir to.” Based on this metaphor, he decides that suicide is a desirable course of action,
“a consummation / Devoutly to be wished.” But, as the religious word “devoutly” signifies, there is more to the question, namely,
what will happen in the afterlife. Hamlet immediately realizes as much, and he reconfigures his metaphor of sleep to include the
possibility of dreaming; he says that the dreams that may come in the sleep of death are daunting, that they “must give us
pause.”

He then decides that the uncertainty of the afterlife, which is intimately related to the theme of the difficulty of attaining
truth in a spiritually ambiguous world, is essentially what prevents all of humanity from committing suicide to end the pain of
life. He outlines a long list of the miseries of experience, ranging from lovesickness to hard work to political oppression, and asks
who would choose to bear those miseries if he could bring himself peace with a knife, “when he himself might his quietus make /
With a bare bodkin?” He answers himself again, saying no one would choose to live, except that “the dread of something after
death” makes people submit to the suffering of their lives rather than go to another state of existence which might be even more
miserable.
In the wake of his father's death, Hamlet can't stop pondering
and considering the meaning of life — and its eventual ending.
Many questions emerge as the text progresses. What happens
when you die? If you're murdered, then will you go to heaven?
Do kings truly have a free pass to heaven? The questions about
death, suicide, and what comes after, are left unanswered.
What Hamlet presents in an exploration and discussion without
a true resolution.

A turning point for Hamlet occurs in the graveyard scene in Act

V. Before, Hamlet has been appalled and revolted by the moral
corruption of the living. Seeing Yorick's skull (someone he loved
and respected) makes Hamlet's realise death eliminates
differences between people.
 Conscience and moral sensitivity
The dread of the afterlife, Hamlet concludes, leads to excessive moral sensitivity
that makes action impossible: “conscience does make cowards of us all . . . thus
the native hue of resolution / Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.”

In this way, this speech also deals with the connection between thought and
action and what it reveals about the quality of Hamlet’s mind. His deeply
passionate nature is complemented by a relentlessly logical intellect, which
works furiously to find a solution to his misery. He has turned to religion and
found it inadequate to help him either kill himself or resolve to kill Claudius. Here,
he turns to a logical philosophical inquiry and finds it equally frustrating.
 Revenge
Fortinbras and Laertes (and the Priam story) are perfect foils to Hamlet, when it comes to avenging the
unjust deaths of their fathers. Is Hamlet a coward in this area?

Is Hamlet really guilty of procrastination – or doubt, or

self-castigation, or intellectual philosophising, when planning
revenge? He is not Laertes; he thinks first. He does make plans: he
adopts an ‘antic disposition’, he investigates further, he plans the
play. In all these, he acts quickly and decisively, and is actually
doing the right thing for that moment. The time is not right, just
then.
 Madness and Melancholy
Firstly, one must remember that Hamlet is absolutely alone; there is no one
in Elsinore who understands him, and no one to whom he can turn for help.
Hamlet's originally acts mad (crazy, not angry) to fool people into think
he is harmless while probing his father's death and Claudius's involvement. It
frees him immediately from the intolerable burden of remaining on good
terms with Claudius. ‘He plays the madman to prevent himself from
becoming one.’

However, his bitter criticism of all created things is an indication of the encroaching irrationality: his interest in
the universal, not of the particular, is always dominant; not his mother’s sin, but the ‘frailty’ of all women.

He is very persuasive and good at manipulating people, his speeches loaded as they are with sardonic satire and
menace. He is young and lonely and cannot trust any of his friends, not even Ophelia. Early on, the bumbling
Polonius says "though this be madness, yet there is method in't" (Act II, Scene II). Polonius's assertion is ironic
because he is right and wrong. Polonius falsely believes Hamlet's madness stems from Hamlet's love of Ophelia.
To notice a method behind the crazy talk was impressive of Polonius.
Later, Hamlet tells his mother that he "essentially [is] not in madness, / But mad in craft" (3.4.204-205)
and claims to "put an antic disposition on" (1.5.189), but does he ever cross the line between sanity and
insanity in the play? To complicate matters, the world of Hamlet seems insane: the king is a murderer; the
queen lusts after her dead husband's brother; friends spy on friends; and one character (Ophelia) really does
go insane. Could Hamlet really be sane in an insane world? And what about Hamlet's melancholy? From the
beginning of the play, Hamlet is depressed, and he considers suicide several different times. What is the real
cause of his melancholy? Does he ever break out of his melancholy?

But as the play progresses, Hamlet's behavior become more erratic. His acting mad
seems to cause Hamlet to lose his grip on reality. The circumstances he has to
manage emotionally are difficult, to say the least. Succumbing to physical violence
when under extreme stress shows that Hamlet has deeper-set issues than merely
acting mad. In reflection, Hamlet's choices and impulses beg the question, what gives
him the right to act as such without consequences? What about his treatment of
Ophelia? Can that be justified?
 Women
Hamlet is at his most agitated state when talking to either female character. Although he cares
for both, he's suspicious, as well. In the case of his mother, Gertrude, Hamlet feels she remarried
too quickly and that her remarriage means she didn't love her first husband all that much. The
idea freaks Hamlet out. Gertrude, no doubt, is sensual and selfish in many of her decisions,
married one day to one man, and within weeks, to his polar opposite – for love and political
power. How much does she know of Claudius’s murderous actions? If she does, then she is a
conniving temptress who used her power to conspire with Claudius to kill her husband and
usurp Prince Hamlet’s ascendancy. If not, is she foolishly blind?

No textual references are conclusive, though King Hamlet calls her his ‘most seeming virtuous queen’ implying that
she only ‘seemed’ or ‘appeared’ to be his virtuous wife and queen, and that the affair preceded his death. He also
implies later that there are ‘thorns’ in her bosom that will ‘prick and sting her’ and pleads with Hamlet to ‘step
between her and her fighting soul’. We are also not sure how much Claudius confides in her: does he tell her of his
plans for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern - of his plotting with Laertes? It does not seem so – but what of earlier
schemes – as his trip to England?
Then there's Ophelia. From the way the characters talk, we know Hamlet has been wooing Ophelia for
some time. But after Hamlet starts to act mad, it doesn't take long for him to assume that Ophelia is in
cahoots with Gertrude, Claudius, and Polonius. Ophelia pays the price for Gertrude’s shameful behaviour
and the way it reinforces Hamlet’s attitude towards women. She has no mother figure in her life – only a
garrulous, foolish, ‘weaselly’ politician of a father. In reality, Ophelia obeyed her father and her monarch,
accepting the patriarchal model as the norm. Her brother tries to protect her but when Hamlet attacks her
verbally, she is driven mad: the one she loves so much abuses her, and her father, foolish as he is, is killed.

In both cases, Hamlet feels as if each woman has betrayed him, respectively. He's critical and quick to
point out flaws though puns and backhanded comments. Ophelia is usually viewed as a true victim, while
Gertrude's role is interpreted with more flexibility. In either case, the role and treatment of women in
Hamlet is essential to discuss with an open mind.
Hamlet as a character:
Hamlet is one of the most complex characters in literature, and Shakespeare
created in Hamlet a character that defies easy explanation. Is he ‘everyman’?
or ‘noble’ man? Or ‘mad’ man? What aspects of Hamlet's character are
admirable? What are Hamlet's weaknesses or flaws? And what about Hamlet's
mental state? Hamlet has been called the most intelligent character in all of
literature. Why? And how does his melancholy and feigned (or unfeigned)
madness add complexity to his character? Does Hamlet see the world lucidly,
or is his perception of the world too clouded by his melancholy? And why
does Hamlet take so long to kill Claudius?

There is no doubt he is sensitive and intellectual, has a keen-edged wit,

dipped in irony, a student of philosophy and a prince. He is no recluse and
has the genius for friendship and love, is the darling of the court and the
country. It is the fact that intellectual speculation has come to outweigh the
practical application, that makes him an unsuitable king in complex times and
ironically, when he acts, makes him act on impulse.