To be, or not to be? These words, heard by most English speakers at some point of their life, signify one of the greatest puzzles we face in life: dealing with our own mortality. Many religions and philosophies offer a perspective on death. Some promise an afterlife, and some philosophies conclude that life means little. Even with an afterlife, some question what effect they leave on the world from the events in their life. The play Hamlet by William Shakespeare demonstrates that death makes all life equal through the fruitlessness of life on Earth, Hamlet’s interaction with skulls in the churchyard, and the death of nearly every main character at the end of the play.
Prince Hamlet spends a majority of the play contemplating his own philosophy …show more content…
He and his close friend Horatio inspect various skulls on the ground. While looking at one skull, he reasons, “This fellow might be in’s time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries. Is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt?”(Act V Scene I). Hamlet realizes that the dirt-filled skull simply belongs to a human. Anyone from any walk of life, holy or unholy, rich or poor, will reduce to dust over time and be forgotten. This walk of life can relate to Hamlet himself. A gravedigger reveals one skull to belong to a court jester from Hamlet’s childhood. “Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kiss’d I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning?”(Act V Scene I). Hamlet knows none of the man’s talents matter in his dead state. He even relates one of the most known people in history to his observations: “Imperious Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay / Might stop a hole to keep the wind
Prince Hamlet spends a majority of the play contemplating his own philosophy …show more content…
He and his close friend Horatio inspect various skulls on the ground. While looking at one skull, he reasons, “This fellow might be in’s time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries. Is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt?”(Act V Scene I). Hamlet realizes that the dirt-filled skull simply belongs to a human. Anyone from any walk of life, holy or unholy, rich or poor, will reduce to dust over time and be forgotten. This walk of life can relate to Hamlet himself. A gravedigger reveals one skull to belong to a court jester from Hamlet’s childhood. “Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kiss’d I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning?”(Act V Scene I). Hamlet knows none of the man’s talents matter in his dead state. He even relates one of the most known people in history to his observations: “Imperious Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay / Might stop a hole to keep the wind