Sleep Eternal or Power Naps

Suicide seems to be a hot topic in the drama world. Most of the famous playwrights deal heavily with suicide at one point or another in their body of work--makes one wonder if it is a hazard of the field. Maybe the playwrights themselves suffer greatly from depression; much art seems to come from the darkest places in the human mind.

In act III scene I, Hamlet is contemplating suicide. Trying to determine whether life is worth suffering through. He takes an argument antithetical to most peoples views on suicide. While most people believe it is a coward who cuts his life short, Hamlet believes it is a coward who fails to end his life because no man wishes to deal with the suffering accompanied by the flesh. Our fear of the dreams in our eternal sleep is what stops all men from committing suicide. However, the whole contemplation is fairly abstract with no commitments to life or death. Since Hamlet does not kill himself here, it is safe to say he resolves to continue living.

I find the concept of consciousness making cowards of all of us a terrifyingly narrow and harmful view of the world, but seemingly appropriate for such tragic figure.