Hamlet- Act 3 Analysis

   Let's begin with the most obvious. In Act 3, Hamlet delivers his famous "To be or not to be"soliloquy, which just so happens to be the most famous soliloquy/speech in Western literature. If indeed the soliloquy does speak of Hamlet contemplating suicide ("to be or not to be" meaning "to live or to die"), the soliloquy seems to be placed at an awkward place in the play. Hamlet is about to execute his plan and attempt to avenge his fallen father, it seems he ought to want to be alive more than ever, yet he is contemplating suicide as a possible better alternative to life.
   In Act 3, we also see just how much revenge meant to Hamlet. Hamlet has the opportunity to kill the King while he is praying, begging for forgiveness for his sins (even though this is insincere, as he refuses to give up the objects of his sin- the throne and his wife) but holds back because he realizes that if he is to kill the King then he will go to heaven because he was praying at the time of his death. Hamlet then comes to the rational decision that he will kill the King but when he is committing a sin, so he may go straight to hell. If anyone at this point thought Hamlet was crazy then they can take that back. With his actions Hamlet shows us that he is in full control of his body and emotions. He is being overwhelmed by emotions, as his soliloquies demonstrate, but he can control every aspect of himself. Revenge meant so much to Hamlet that he was willing to challenge divine authority. We can see a bit of a Promethean plot here, with Hamlet attempting to play God and decide who is to be damned for eternity.
   In the previous Acts, Hamlet had been very respectful and composed with the Queen. In Act 3,we can see this shift for the first time. Rather than continuing to be the respectful son he had been, he insults his mother gravely in Scene 4 of Act 3, even going as far as to tell her that he wishes she were not his mother, as well as commanding her to stop having sex with Claudius and even subtly threatening her.Could this be because Hamlet is going to shift his character once more, as we have seen him continuously do throughout the play (going from depressed, to composed, to crazy) or is he simply excluding his mother from the act he is playing because he is not going to exclude her in the revenge?
   One very interesting moment in the Act was when Hamlet kills Polonious and claims that he mistook him for a rat. Throughout the story Hamlet had not liked Polonious (just as we grew to dislike him due to his very dishonest and selfish behavior) and it seems quite appropriate that he compares him with an animal so despicable as a rat. Polonious' death falls very short to what was expected. All throughout the play,his character is built up and it is almost as if Shakespeare forces us to dislike him, putting so many negative characteristics in one character, and then he dies a death that has no impact (other that producing some humor at he being compared to a rat). His death can be a reflection of his life. During his life, he lived hiding behind people and calling the shots anonymously, which can be represented by him instructing the Queen on what to do then hiding behind the curtain. He is then killed without any impact, much like how he tried to be significant all the time but accomplished nothing.