Hi,
Where you have put semi-colons, I'd usually use commas. I have also suggested some other changes to your punctuation. My general advice is not to get into the habit of using semi-colons and colons. They can often make tyour meaning more obscure rather than more clear.
You seem to have a very good understanding of this topic. I've broken up your one huge paragraph into two. Are there any other ways you can make your organization clearer to the reader?
Best wishes, Clive
Commentary on "To Be or not to Be"
In this soliloquy Hamlet sparks an internal philosophical debate on the advantages and disadvantages of existence, and whether it is one's right to end one's own life. He first asks himself thoughtfully whether it is nobler to bear the miseries of life or to take arms against them; but since both passive and active resistance are doomed to failure, he regards death as a mean to end one’s sorrows once and for all. He sees death from a Medieval perspective, as physical liberation from the prison of the body (the “mortal coil”); but he also symbolizes the doubt of the Renaissance man, concerning the after life. Indeed he faces an obstacle, that is to say the fear of “what dreams may come” in that sleep of death. If death were like a dreamless sleep, it would be easy to put an end to the misfortunes of life with a single stroke, but since we don’t know what to expect in the afterlife, we haven’t courage enough commit suicide. He says that the troubles of life are such that no one would willingly bear them, but our cowardice makes us “bear those ills we have / than fly to others that we know not of”.
In his soliloquy, Hamlet uses various gramatical structures to express his uncertainty, such as the infinitive forms. His speech takes shape slowly because of its thoughtful nature. The climax is reached when Hamlet lists the injustices and miseries of life, concluding that it would only take a small does his word 'mere' mean 'small' or does it mean 'unimportant'? knife to bring relief. He also uses metaphors, such as that of the mortal coil, that of the unknown country from where no traveller comes back, and that of the opposition between the pale cast of thought and the native hue of resolution. This one in particular helps us understand that for Hamlet courage is the ability to cross the border between life and death; but most people are cowards and this cowardice, through “the pale cast of thought”, makes us stay alive. The soliloquy elevates Hamlet’s individual case to an universal level; this is achieved through the use of the plural pronouns 'we' and 'us', the indefinite 'who', and the impersonal infinitive. Its problematic nature is shown by the insistent use of interrogatives, while the internal struggle within Hamlet’s mind is pointed out by the use of images from the battle-field (“slings and arrows”, which has become an idiomatic expression, and “to take arms against a sea of troubles”). In the middle of the soliloquy we can find an enumeration of life’s misfortunes; while reflecting upon the nature of death Hamlet uses a repetition (“to die, to sleep”). Finally, we can find a term from the financial semantic field, “quietus”.