The opening of the speech certainly gives a strong sense
of desire for death:
readability="12">
O, that this too too solid flesh would
melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a
dew.
Or that the Everlasting had not
fix'd
His canon 'gainst
self-slaughter!
This words
are a simple wish to either die on the spot, "to melt," or to be allowed by the tenants
of his faith to commit suicide. He goes on to explain that this desire is because he
finds the world to be "an unweeded garden," and that he has no use for such a
world.
The other theme regarding death that Hamlet focuses
on in this soliloquy is how quickly his dead father was forgotten by his mother. He
mentions it at least twice:
readability="7">
But two months dead. Nay, not so much, not
two...
And
readability="6">
...and yet, within a
month
...A little
month.
This focus on the time
between his mother's following his dead father's body in the funeral and marrying his
Uncle is a fact that he cannot forget. It is very important to Hamlet, in his concept
of death, that the dead have their time to be remembered in a period of mourning. He
goes on to comment on her haste:
readability="8">
O, God! A beast that wants discourse of
reason
Would have mourned
longer...
And his final
conclusion about this hasty marriage is that:
readability="6">
It is not, nor it cannot come to
good.
So, though Hamlet
begins the soliloquy wishing for his own death and contemplating suicide, it becomes
clear that his real concern is the lack of respect shown to his dead father by his
mother, an illustration of his feelings about the importance of proper mourning over the
dead.
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