Why "to be or not to be" is a monologue?

"To be or not to be" is one of the famous sentences in Hamlet. It is very simple and easy to remember. Because it is too simple that can be comprehended to many different meanings. So there is no limits for what should the meaning of this sentence is. To be or not to be, there are only two answers of this question, and each way will lead to an very different ending. Hamlet wanted to claim what he was thinking at that point. Be alive or just die.

 

I totally agree with Cumberbatch that this speech is a soliloquy because it allows the audience to empathize with Hamlet. Dialogue cannot get to this point. I want to connect with a survey that I did in my Spanish class which is something like "which is the best way for you to accept and remember information/knowledge?" According to the result that my teacher told me, most people are either visual type or auditory type. This give me a hint that directly listening and watching will leave a great influence. 

In my opinion, one of the main functions of dialogue is to push the plots and make them become lively, interesting and reliable. Imagine that you are an audience of a live play, no matter what play it is, there is a random dialogue between two characters. You might not fully focus on what they are talking to each other, but you must notice and leave a deep impression in your mind of the fact that they are talking with each other. You will  focus more on their actions more than the content in their dialogue. I think that because for the visual part, you are watching those two characters on the stage directly, and you also can directly see what they are doing. So what you see will naturally leave you a great impression. But the thing is they are talking to each other, as A is talking to B, so B is the person who receive those audio message directly. Audiences are bystanders so the audio message they receive actually is second-hand. What I mean is useless you are mean to know what they are talking about, when you are listening to others' conversation, you might not pay that much attention. 

Instead, monologue is different because you can not only see the actor standing on the stage talking to audiences but also since the actor is talking to audiences, audiences become the direct recipients. So both strong visual and audio impressions will pass to audiences which will call their empathy more easily. Moreover, this speech is a turning point of the play, so it is both important for the character--Hamlet and the plot.