Hamlet conversation

Recently my group in Hamlet had a discussion of the third act of Hamlet, the third act is one of my favorite and it contained a lot of topics that could have been discussed for hours, unfortunately the bell had to ring sometime. We spoke particularly about Hamlets famous lines of-

"To be, or not to be". The reason these lines are so important is because it adds too Shakespeare's ability to make his scenes, and characters for that matter... very three dimensional. Hamlet is a character who has a subconscious that only the audience seems to understand. Hamlet himself never says the words "I or me" in the speech itself, almost as if he does not consider consider killing himself. He does not express himself in agony or pain, which could possibly lead him to only pose the question as a matter of philosophical debate on the topic... almost. When he states that anybody would kill themselves if they weren't certain about afterlife then he is almost arguing for a certain belief instead of commenting on the fact that he might want to actually kill himself. It is hard for us to know exactly what Shakespeare intended for the "to be or not to be" line, did he directly refer to this idea of suicide? If so then Shakespeare was years ahead of his time, in fact it was forbidden to think such thoughts during the turn of the century. Did he mean to be as in to act or to take action? that could be a possibility because he certainly had revenge set in his mind and wanted to act upon his wishes and wills of his ghost father. Or he could mean to be as in to appear as himself and to not be as to not be himself, Hamlet does seem to know a lot about appearing a certain way and he consistently lies to others.... but we see a true release of Hamlets and who he is, this is his biggest speech that he gives alone.




The only big question remaining for this speech is whether Hamlet is crazy or not, my group had varied opinions on the matter, I thought he was just as crazy as we are all and that any of us in the situation would end up like he would.That Shakespeare was trying to make a comment on how each of us lived our lives to the perception that we are all sane, yet if we look at what we do then we truly are crazy creatures.

We know that we are going to die, yet we completely ignore that fact.
To put it into very very very simple terminology.

"When you admit that we are all crazy the mystery goes away and all else stands explain"- Twain

This quote by Twain really emphasizes to me Hamlets last lines "The rest is silence".