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To Be or Not to Be Meaning

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Submitted By Zerotense
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He is contemplating life -- to live or not to live.

"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?" What he's saying is: "Is it better to bear the painful burden of life, or to refuse the burden by killing yourself?"

Life is so full of pain ("the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the pangs of despised love"), why do we continue to live when we could just kill ourselves and end the pain ("to die, to sleep, no more, and by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to")?

The only thing stopping us is our fear of the unknown, so we choose life over the risk of possible damnation ("the undiscovered country from which no man returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others we know not of").

He rationalizes that the reason we are afraid is because we think too much and as a result we fail to act ("thus conscience doth make cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought"). He knows the reason he has yet to take revenge on his uncle is because he thinks instead of acts when he has the opportunity ("and enterprises of great pitch and moment, with this regard their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action").
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