REVISE – To be or not to be

Choose the correct alternative to complete the text.

A soliloquy is a speech given when ________. It can serve many purposes like revealing the character's feelings in a particular moment of the play. In this case, the speech reveals ________.

In his questioning, Hamlet uses imagery associated either with life or death. Decide if the images taken from the passage refer to life or death.

1 whips and scorns  ________
2 slings and arrows  ________
3 sleep ________
4 undiscover'd country from whose bourn no traveller returns ________
5 sea of troubles  ________
6 dreams  ________

Complete the text about Hamlet's views on life and death with the words given.
While life is compared to a ________, in which man has to undergo to a series of injustices and ________, death has a more ________ and ever-changing connotation. First, seen as a deep ________, which for the Elizabethans is the balm of life, it becomes a sleep tormented by bad ________, and, ultimately, an ________ country from which no ________ returns. This view of death is far from the idea of an after-life ________ by God and contains the ________ of the Modern Age.

Your teacher has asked you to report Hamlet's speech. Complete the text with the verbs given.

Hamlet is asking himself a serious question: is it better to ________ the hardships of life, or to ________ it all? He considers the idea of suicide as a way to ________ suffering, comparing it to sleep. He ________ that death might be peaceful, but he worries about what might happen after death – are there dreams, or is it nothingness? This uncertainty makes him hesitant to ________ his own life.
Hamlet then ________ the many difficulties people face in life: unfair treatment, rejection, and the abuse of power. He ________ why anyone would choose to put up with these difficulties when they could simply end their own life. However, the fear of the unknown – what happens after death? – prevents people from taking that step. This fear makes us ________ to the familiar, even if it is painful, rather than ________ the uncertainties of the afterlife. Hamlet ________ that the fear of death paralyses us, making us indecisive and preventing us from taking action to improve our lives.

Read the text and decide if the statements are true or false. Then look at the prompts in brackets and write some extra reflections in your exercise book. You can use the final text as revision material for your test.

A prominent critic of Shakespeare observed that Hamlet, despite the tragic circumstances surrounding his father's death – his exclusion from the throne due to his mother's hasty marriage to Claudius and the ghost's demand for revenge – does not immediately act. Instead, he engages in 'endless reasoning and hesitating.'¹
While revenge tragedies typically involve an initial period of thinking and planning, they ultimately require decisive action. (Look at section 3.18 in your textbook and add information on revenge tragedies, which were popular in Shakespeare's time.) However, Hamlet's actions throughout the play are largely reactive, driven by the actions of others rather than by a proactive pursuit of revenge. (Look through the plot for some examples.)
Furthermore, the extract alludes to the 'thought' or 'philosophical questioning' prevalent during the Renaissance (Refer to the Renaissance and the expansion of knowledge. Look at sections 3.5 and 3.6 in your textbook), a period characterised by expanding knowledge and a growing sense of uncertainty. (Reflect on the use of subject pronouns in the extract to underline a general condition.)

^{1 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Shakespearean Criticism: In Two Volumes. Volume Two. Edited by Thomas Middleton Raysor, J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., London, 1930.}