To be, or not to be, that is the question: / Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, / And by opposing end them?
Act III, Scene 1 · Hamlet
Context
Alone after the court exits, Hamlet begins his most famous soliloquy, framing existence itself as a dilemma: whether to passively endure suffering or to actively resist it, even if resistance means death.
Analysis
Hamlet opens with the starkest possible alternatives—'To be, or not to be'—reducing life's complexity to a binary choice, then immediately begins to complicate it. The metaphor 'sea of troubles' captures the problem: you cannot fight an ocean, so the military language of 'take arms' and 'opposing' is absurd from the start. The syntax mirrors the content: the question seems simple, but the sentences that follow pile up clauses and qualifications until action becomes impossible.
Essay Tip
Use this to argue that Hamlet's paralysis is built into his language—he sets up choices as clear alternatives but then uses metaphors (fighting a sea) that make action seem logically incoherent before he even attempts it.