To Be, Or Not To Be

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 (Act III, Scene I)

    "To be, or not to be" is one of the most famous lines ever written in English literature. This speech is very interesting for a number of reasons. One of the first questions that comes to mind is, does Hamlet know he is being watched? We have seen him talk about suicide and feeling depressed before, but this is distinctly different. This time, Hamlet does not specifically refer to himself or his own demise. He almost poses it like a philosophical question, as if he was struggling with the morality of suicide.
     Hamlet claims that fear of the afterlife is what keeps people from killing themselves. In his mind, no one would willingly "suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" if not for the fear of the unknown. He compares death to sleep and afterlife to dreams, saying "in that sleep of death what dreams may come" worrying about punishment from God. Hamlet says that death would "end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to," referring to the pain natural life comes with. However, he also discusses the way that people don't know what will happen in the afterlife, and are therefore afraid to shake "off this mortal coil".
     In this passage, Hamlet discusses suicide very objectively, never including himself specifically in the discussion. He doesn't talk about his own pain or suffering, he only discusses it as a type of philosophical debate about why someone might want to kill themselves or what the ramifications would be. The fact that he is discussing this does strongly suggest that he is considering suicide and trying to decide if it is a good idea, but he never explicitly relates the discussion to himself or his own life. The fact that he does not explicitly relate this discussion of suicide to himself suggests that he is unable to deal with his emotions directly.