Hamlet's “To be or not to be” soliloquyDoes the hero of Shakespeare's Hamlet deliver a soliloquy that does not fit into the dramatic context? Does the soliloquy suggest that suicide is imminent? This essay proposes to answer these and other questions relevant to the monologue “To be or not to be”. Lawrence Danson, in the essay "Tragic Alphabet", discusses the most famous of soliloquies as involving an "eternal dilemma": The problem of discrediting time The effects on human actions and intentions are what make Hamlet's soliloquy “To be or not to be” an eternal dilemma rather than an accomplished dialectic. Faced with the uncertainty of all action, an uncertainty which extends even to the beyond, Hamlet also finds the “wick or tobacco” of which Claudius speaks: “Thus conscience” – by which Hamlet means, I suppose , not only scruples. but all thoughts concerning the future – make us all cowards; name of the action. – (III.i.83). (75) Given the context of this most remarkable of monologues, the speech appears to be a reaction to the determination that ended the monologue of the "peasant thug and slave." In fact, in the 1603 Quarto, the "Being" speech appears BEFORE the players' scene and the convent scene - and is therefore more logically placed to show its emotional connection to the preceding soliloquy (Nevo 46). Marchette Chute in "The Story Told in Hamlet" describes how close the hero comes to suicide by reciting his famous soliloquy: Hamlet enters, quite desperate b...... middle of paper ...... Levin, Harry . “An Explanation of Player Speech.” Modern critical interpretations: Hamlet. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1986. Rpt. from The Question of Hamlet. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959. Nevo, Ruth. “Acts III and IV: problems of text and direction”. Modern critical interpretations: Hamlet. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1986. Rpt. of Shakespeare's tragic form. Np: Princeton University Press, 1972. Rosenberg, Marvin. “Laertes: an impulsive but serious young aristocrat.” Readings on Hamlet. Ed. Don Nardo. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1999. Rpt. from The Masks of Hamlet. Newark, NJ: Univ. of Delaware P., 1992. Shakespeare, William. The tragedy of Hamlet, prince of Denmark. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1995. http://www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/hamlet/full.html