Hamlet - Action vs. Inaction

To be, or not to be. To act, or not to act. This is the dilemma that plagues Hamlet throughout the entirety of his play. For Hamlet, action breeds inaction, for the more he ponders and considers all routes and consequences, the more incapable of action he becomes. Hamlet’s fight or flight instinct is set perpetually to flight, and from beginning to end, he plays the role of the perfect teenager and procrastinates until his very last moments. This dilemma of action versus inaction is… contrary to traditional revenge tragedies of violent and reckless action… the leading concept that drives Shakespeare’s play throughout. There are two particular moments in this play, where we see two sides to Hamlet, and the fates either disposition brings with them. The tragedy of Hamlet is that his inaction breeds insanity, and his action spawns demise; these two consequences are presented during his most famous soliloquy, ‘To be, or not to be’ and during his final moments at the conclusion of the production.
“Actions that should be carried out at once get misdirected, and stop being actions at all.” In this one line, Hamlet presents us with his most self-defining statement of the play, summarising to us what his primal essence represents. This line forms a part of Hamlet’s famous ‘To be, or not to be’ soliloquy, in which within itself we see the building desire for action, in this case potentially his suicide, and the consequent heightening of his inability to act. This soliloquy carries a very strong “but what if?” air, beginning with Hamlet contemplating suicide, and then giving himself every reason to, and to not, thereafter. Shakespeare employs a heavy metaphor in this soliloquy, aligning death with sleep, and the afterlife with a dream world. “To die,—to sleep;— / To sleep: perchance to dream:—ay, there’s the rub; /   For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, / When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, / Must give us pause:” Hamlet contemplates that the afterlife...