You've said that you'd like to talk about Hamlet's view of life, how he never really intends to give up on it, and that he understands the decay that takes place during one's life, eventually leading to one's death. You might consider this wording: Throughout the play, Hamlet develops a nuanced view of life and death, moving past his initial feelings of angst and despair over his father's death to a more detailed and mature...
You've said that you'd like to talk about Hamlet's view of life, how he never really intends to give up on it, and that he understands the decay that takes place during one's life, eventually leading to one's death. You might consider this wording: Throughout the play, Hamlet develops a nuanced view of life and death, moving past his initial feelings of angst and despair over his father's death to a more detailed and mature understanding of life and the necessity of and symbolism associated with death.
This way, you could begin by discussing Hamlet's initial, purely emotional response to his father's death as well as the way it combines with his feelings of betrayal as a result of his mother's incestuous relationship with her brother-in-law, Hamlet's uncle. It isn't just his father's death that upsets him, but it is her very hasty marriage and her choice of partner. This all goes into his wish to disappear. He doesn't wish for death so much as he wishes that his "sullied flesh would melt, / Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew" (1.2.133-134). However, he later begins to understand death as the great equalizer (consider his argument that a king can be buried, eaten by the worm, the worm is eaten by a fish, and the fish is eaten by a beggar; thus a king can "pass through the guts of a beggar"), as a necessary part of life, and finally as something that is provided for by God, just as "the fall of a sparrow" is" (5.2.234).
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