Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Where in Hamlet does it indicate that Hamlet is afraid of death?

What Hamlet actually says in Shakespeare's play of the
same name is:


readability="13">

A villain kills my father, and for
that,


I, his sole son, do this same villain
send


To Heaven.  (Act
3.4.76-78)



There is no
mention of Hamlet being afraid of death or hell, here.  He mentions his father's state,
a state similar to purgatory during which his sins must be burnt and purged, and he
compares this to sending Claudius to heaven by killing him while he's confessing his
sins.  But Hamlet doesn't talk about his own
fate. 


Furthermore, Hamlet's famous "To be or not to be"
speech (Act 3.1) is more of a rumination or contemplation on existence, an intellectual
process being revealed, than it is a speech about Hamlet being afraid of
death.  To be is to exist.  Hamlet is reasoning out the question of
whether existence is worth the trouble, when one considers all of its hardships and
trials.  He concludes that if one were absolutely sure about what waited on the other
side of death, existence would not be worth the trouble.  But since the afterlife is an
unknown, one might as well continue existing. 
 


Basically, I suggest Hamlet is not afraid of death.  In
fact, he suffers from depression or melancholy most of the play and he feels that death
might be welcome.  The main things that Hamlet is afraid of are acting before his
actions are completely and fully thought out, and killing an innocent
man. 

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