In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, one of the most famous soliloquies “To be or not to be” explains Hamlet’s thought process of life after death and following the person they love. This speech is said after Ophelia died, and Hamlet is brought up with many emotions about how he feels about death. He thinks life after death wouldn’t be as atrocious as people make it out to be, and he considers suicide over the killing of Claudius. Dying after the person that they love is a significant theme in Shakespeare’s plays to show how love can take over a person’s emotions and thoughts of death. In this soliloquy, the afterlife is the theme that brings Hamlet closer in deciding his own fate.
Hamlet explains how the afterlife would end some of the things people have to deal with in the real life; “…and by a sleep to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, ‘tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.” He is saying how sleeping or dying would let go the dreadful things that people live for and would release the emotions that some people can’t bear to live with. He also explains how some people feel about their own life in general; “Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.” He thinks that society stresses about their own lives too much and how the afterlife wouldn’t be a horrific path to take. Hamlet thinks this through right after Ophelia’s death and considers suicide to be with the one he loves and to not have the thought of killing Claudius and having a lot of stress just like society feels.
Hamlet’s soliloquy simplifies the theme of death in the era of Shakespeare’s plays. Death was a fear of many people during this time, and Shakespeare wrote like death wasn’t something to be afraid of. Hamlet’s words were genuine and showed pure emotion of love and how death is a way of life for some people. Even if people...