Hamlet's Attitude To Suicide

In this scene, Hamlet expresses his total dissatisfaction with the life he lives. The world Hamlet lives in is full of pain and suffering, something he wishes he could simply put an end to. He looks to suicide as a potential, promising option. He states, “O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.” However, the life Hamlet lives is the life of Christianity. Under the beliefs of Christianity, if one goes through with the act of suicide, they are bound to eternity in hell and it is for this reason that Hamlet wishes suicide wasn’t a sin, as is shown when he says, “Or that the Everlasting had not fixed his canon ‘gainst self-slaughter!” As a result of this belief of existence that Hamlet has lived by, he reluctantly refrains from taking his own life. Although, this urge to end his own life and the reluctance he displays when deciding not to also shows the beginning of the

Living in a patriarchal society, women are constantly looked down upon and even more so following Hamlet’s mother’s decision of marrying his uncle shortly after his father’s death. Hamlet considers his mother weak because she completely lost her sense of reason and failed to remain faithful to her late husband. It is a common belief that women should always remain faithful after the death of their husband and if they don’t they are to be looked down upon. Shakespeare goes as far as to say that she will be punished for her faithlessness. He uses harsh and degrading language to further his belief that women are inferior to men, such as, “frailty, thy name is woman!” When Hamlet compares his mother to Niobe, he is saying that she is recklessly emotional, which translates to weakness among women. In large, Shakespeare is saying that women are weak because of their emotions. This furthers Shakespeare’s belief of women being inferior to