To be, or not to be

To be, or not to be, opening line of a monologue spoken by the character Hamlet in Act III, scene 1, of William Shakespeare’s revenge tragedy Hamlet (c. 1599–1601). Often referred to as a soliloquy, the speech technically does not meet that term’s strictest definition—that is, a monologue delivered by an actor alone onstage—because Ophelia, the object of Hamlet’s fickle affections, is also present, though Hamlet does not speak directly to her until the speech’s very end. The scene in which “to be, or not to be” appears is sometimes referred to as “the nunnery scene,” because Hamlet spurns Ophelia by telling her to “get thee to a nunnery” rather than wed him or another.

Meaning and interpretations

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The monologue communicates Hamlet’s fixation on the play’s primary moral question: whether it is right for Hamlet to avenge his father’s death by killing his father’s suspected murderer, Claudius. The speech also conveys Hamlet’s obsession with the concepts of life (“to be”) and death (“not to be”). At first, Hamlet considers that death may be merely “a sleep” that could “end / The heart-ache” inherent in being human, but then he frets over “what dreams may come” in “that sleep of death.” This uncertainty is “the rub,” or the crux of the question. With no certain knowledge of what happens after “we have shuffled off this mortal coil,” humans must suffer all of life’s indignities (“the whips and scorns of time, / The oppressor’s wrong”). Otherwise, who would bear such burdens (“these fardels”)? Death is an “undiscover’d country” that might arouse curiosity, but it is a dreadful one “from whose bourn / No traveller returns.”

The speech is typically interpreted as expressing Hamlet’s fear that, by killing his uncle Claudius, he will be committing a grievous sin, the consequence of which will be the eternal damnation of his soul. It has also been interpreted as an indication that Hamlet is considering suicide, an act that is echoed later in the play in Ophelia’s death by drowning, which may or may not have been accidental. Whether “to be, or not to be” specifically refers to Hamlet’s desire to kill Claudius or himself, both interpretations have strong defenders and detractors. The monologue’s layered meanings highlight the complexity of Hamlet’s psychological makeup and of Shakespeare’s gifts for strong characterization through the use of language.

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Literary and pop culture references

“To be, or not to be” is one of Shakespeare’s most famous phrases and one of the most famous phrases in English literature. It is no exaggeration to say that it is impossible to catalog all the times it has been referred to in other literary works and in popular culture. For example, a burlesque of the speech appears in Mark Twain’s novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), in a chapter in which Huck and his friend Jim are joined on their Mississippi River raft by two traveling con artists who are passing themselves off as an English duke and the king of France. The con men plan to put on a production of Shakespeare in the next town on their schedule. The duke attempts to teach the king “Hamlet’s soliloquy…the most celebrated thing in Shakespeare.” But with no copy of the play at hand, the duke must “piece it out from memory,” resulting in a comical mishmash of lines from various speeches in Hamlet and other Shakespearean plays that incorrectly begins, “To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin.”

Ernst Lubitsch’s brilliant satirical film To Be or Not to Be (1942) follows two married members of an acting troupe, played by Jack Benny and Carole Lombard, who get caught up in a search for a German spy in World War II-era Poland. Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft took on the same roles in a 1983 remake. Kurt Vonnegut’s 1962 short story “2 B R 0 2 B” (the “0” in the title is pronounced “naught”) explores a dystopian world where population control is achieved by government-mandated infanticide and assisted suicide. Those who want to avail themselves of the government’s macabre services can call a hotline, the number for which is the same as the story’s title. In the cult flick Last Action Hero (1993), Arnold Schwarzenegger plays an action movie star named Jack Slater who is the favorite actor of a young boy named Danny. When Danny becomes bored while watching the 1948 film version of Hamlet starring Laurence Olivier, he imagines Jack Slater in the role. His imaginary version comes complete with a movie trailer in which tough guy Hamlet chomps on a cigar, wields an Uzi, and delivers the opening line of the famous speech—and gives it an answer—as a church explodes behind him: “To be or not to be? Not to be.”

Other lines from the monologue have found their way into pop culture. The sci-fi film Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) is named for Hamlet’s lines “The undiscover’d country from whose bourn / No traveller returns,” and a Klingon character quotes Shakespeare’s work in the alien language. Indeed, another character claims, “You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon.” P.D. James’s chilling novel The Children of Men (1992) borrows the word quietus (from the lines “That patient merit of the unworthy takes, / When he himself might his quietus make / With a bare bodkin?”) for the name of a government program that forces older adults to participate in mass suicide so as not to become a burden on society. In the novel’s 2006 film adaptation, directed by Alfonso Cuarón, the term is used as the name of a suicide-facilitation kit in the form of a self-administered drug.

The monologue

The full speech reads as follows:

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To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep.
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of dispriz’d love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action. Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember’d.