Hamlet Interview

Rujian Zhou

9/4/2016

The Monologue From Soul

Hamlet as one of the most famous plays in the world, it has many unique and attractive dialogues. “To be or not to be” is the best-known line of the world theaters, which is a monologue from Hamlet at act.3. It describes the identity of character Hamlet, which shows the unique emotions on Hamlet as well as let all the audiences wonder the meaning of the monologue. So I agree with Benedict Cumberbatch says in the interview, the monologue “to be or not to be” should be a monologue and it allows audiences to empathizes with Hamlet.

   In my opinion, Hamlet stands as one of the greatest play for hundreds of years, one of the reason is because it has extraordinary dialogues that make all the characters alive. “To be or not to be” is one of them, it shows the struggles in Hamlet’s heart, it shows the pains, the wonders, the anger and many other emotions from Hamlet. When Hamlet says this monologue, he is crazy, or he is pretending crazy, the monologue shows the emotion to audiences with specific words. For example, “The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles” shows the struggle of Hamlet. In my mind, Hamlet speaks out his anger of the unjust in the world. He was angry of his father’s died and his mother’s faithlessness, and this makes him think about revenge. This monologue is similar to many other dialogues in the play, which it does not simply describe the emotion, but hiding the emotion behind those specific words. And those words affect audiences to think and try to understand the characters. It is the words spoken from the soul of Hamlet.

Benedict Cumberbatch says in the interview, “to find the needs to say it” is what is in his mind when his Hamlet say “To be or not to be”. This impressive me very much, because I think the same way. Hamlet, as a play that made 400 years ago, it is amazing not only because of its story but because the way Shakespeare write it. Instead of writing directly that make every character have a clear identity, Shakespeare wrote the only the dialogues of the characters. The dialogues can easy find the needs of different people in different time, this makes the playlists for so many years. In different times, people think in different ways. But this “unclear” monologue let all the people can have their own thinkings about the characters. When the audiences curious about the personalities of Hamlet and try to understand Hamlet, they empathize Hamlet without notice.

“There are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people's eyes” The success of Hamlet is not only because of the story, but also it has spaces to let audiences empathize the characters in different time. The power of the language has more effects than people knows, the monologue stands as the soul of the Hamlet and effect many people over 400 years. To be, or not to be: that is the question: