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Hamlet Suicide

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Each year 35,000 people commit suicide. According to the Huffington Post and World Health Organization, by the year 2030, depression, but specifically suicide, will have outpaced cancer, stroke, war, and accidents. That number only describes the ones who actually accomplish suicide. In the United States alone surveys suggest an estimated one million people attempt to kill themselves, with females attempting three times more than men. Now these are some intensely high numbers, so instead of looking at the bigger picture – Let’s narrow it down. Down to one person in particular. Hamlet. Hamlet is a play written by William Shakespeare and something almost every person who has gone through a high school career has read, and maybe even watched in …show more content…

The first one we are going to go over is his speech that was in Act One, Scene two. He starts off saying that he wishes his body to disintegrate into thin air and wishes there wasn’t a law his God has made against suicide. He goes on explaining how life is pointless to him and it eventually turns into his view on how quickly his mother moved on from his now murdered and dead father. This is especially true when he states that his father has been “But two months dead—nay, not so much, not two” (1.2.139). The death of his father is the clear key factor that makes him start this questioning of death and the beginning of his hatred for the world around him. He begins to wonder and say things like “How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable” life is to him (1.2.133-134). He even claimed that within him, nothing good comes anymore. This soliloquy he spoke was most likely what started this trend of suicidal thoughts – and it only deepened from there. This speech shows how it started – the death of a parent, a King no less, would affect anyone, and for the situation to worsen. Hamlet’s mother didn’t seem to bat an eye when it came to remarrying Hamlet’s uncle, likely to keep her title as Queen. In my opinion, this marks the beginning of Hamlet’s rapid spiral down into the darker depths of

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