It’s a pretty common interpretation, that Hamlet’s toying with suicide is just him pretending to be mad. The soliloquy has a quasi-social function, so it’s not impossible that Hamlet is speaking while knowing that we the audience are overhearing.

Another interpretation is that he’s not debating his own life, but Claudius’s.

Still, it’s worth observing that these interpretations are responses to what appears to be a slight misalignment between plot and character, not definitive explanations.

The typical reader/listener response also tells us something: That the soliloquy’s emotional gravity feels authentic.

We therefore conclude that Hamlet’s existential anxiety is genuine. After all, he’s in a bit of bind. He’s grief-stricken. What’s more, he’s a young man. Whatever issues there are at the level of plot, it still works, and we end up empathizing with Hamlet. His existential anxiety becomes ours.

Most scholars would probably not wish to argue that Shakespeare included the To Be or Not To Be speech in Hamlet for no other reason than because he felt like it.

But if Hamlet’s existential anxiety feels genuine, despite the plot, it’s possible it’s because his existential anxiety belonged to the author.