Examples Of Hamlet's On-Going Madness

While Hamlet’s “mad” behavior starts out as an “antic disposition,” his mental state deteriorates. Does Hamlet truly go “mad,” or is all of his wackiness an act?

He in that moment decides that he wants to kill Claudius to both get revenge on him, but also to honor his father's memory and his wishes. He tells his friends Horatio and Marcellus about his plans to fake madness by saying “How strange or odd some’er I bear myself / (As I perchance hereafter shall think meet / To put antic disposition on)” (1.5. 190-2). His “antic disposition” or craziness, that he is going to put on as a show, is in order to be less threatening. His is trying to trick Claudius into thinking that he has gone off the deep end, so he wouldn’t know that Hamlet was going to kill him until the last minute. This feigned madness is initially discovered by Ophelia when Hamlet comes in her room and does the typical love sick crazy person routine. “Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced, / No hat upon his head, his stockings fouled, / Ungartered, and down-gyved to his ankle, / Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other, / And with a look of piteous in purport /As if he had been loosed out of hell” (2.1. 88-93). This was Hamlet's first attempt at the fake madness, the intentions of which, were not

When reading Shakespeare’s Hamlet as a class, the first thing that most teachers or professors point out is the argument/idea of sanity, specifically Hamlet's sanity. I believe that Hamlet is, in fact, feigning his madness. What I do not know is if I believe this because it is what I was taught or if I came up with the idea myself based on my own interpretation. When I was taught Hamlet there was no argument it was just fact that he was faking his madness. Because of my confusion, I came to find that it may be interesting take out of the play any moment in which Hamlet makes the audience aware that he is only pretending that to be mad. I want to take out any proof that his madness isn’t real. The argument for legitimate madness is always

The time when Shakespeare's wrote the play "The Tragedy of Hamlet'", madness had already been established as an element in several revenge tragedies. Hamlet's revenge tragedy is unique as it is clear that he has a motive. Hamlet is a threat to Claudius' authority whether sane or insane and his assumed madness gives justification for his actions. Helmet obviously has some planned tricks and has thoroughly considered his feigned madness. Although Hamlet had gone through tragedies of his father's death and the marriage between his uncle and mother, the play shows evidence that Hamlet purposely feigned his madness to confuse the king and attendants.

Throughout the play, Hamlet’s character is characterized both by periods of extreme caution and moments of impulsivity. One of the best examples of Hamlet’s heed can be found in Act 2, Scene 2 where he decides to have his theatre troupe perform his play, The Mousetrap. With this, Hamlet hopes that he will be able to “catch the conscience of the King,” by monitoring Claudius during the performance, that heavily mimics his murder of his brother, for signs of stress and guilt. While Hamlet was fully capable of bypassing this step by simply adhering to what he believes is the ghost of his father, Hamlet’s decision to unearth some sort of evidence that supports his father’s accusations is just one example of his cautious ways and need for certainty before action. However, such displays of caution find themselves juxtaposed with Hamlet’s bouts of impulsivity. One of the most telling illustrations of Hamlet’s rashness can be found in Act One, Scene Five, where he first conversing with the ghost of his father. Here, when the Ghost asks Hamlet to “revenge his foul and most unnatural murder,” Hamlet immediately agrees. In fact, within the next few lines Hamlet pledges he will “sweep to my revenge” with “wings as swift as meditation or the thoughts of love”. The fact that Hamlet coins this commitment to avenge his father’s murder without making much of any consideration of the possible repercussions of such an undertaking is one of the best representations of Hamlet’s impulsivity. This rash action, marked by a lack of extended over-analysis and internal debate, contrasts with the excessive caution Hamlet exhibits at many other points throughout the play. Ultimately, the interplay between Hamlet’s caution and impulsivity is one of the most notable juxtapositions of the play and serves to strongly steer the development, not only of

     Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, is a complex play, filled with layers of meaning. These are often revealed through the madness of the characters and the theme of madness throughout the play. Although Hamlet and Ophelia are the only characters thought to be so afflicted, the reactions of other characters to this madness mirrors their own preoccupations.

Over the course of Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, Hamlet begins to act strange. He not only acts strange, but he begins to act like a madman. Therefore, many question his sanity after reading the play. There are many examples and hints throughout the play that leads one to believe that Hamlet has slowly gone mad after losing his father. It is noticeable that Hamlet is mad when he enters Ophelia’s room, sees the Ghost, and talks to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

   In Shakespeare's play Hamlet, there are several questions that come to the reader's mind regarding the emotional state of Hamlet.  Was Hamlet really suffering from madness, as many of his friends and family thought?  Was he mad or just pretending to be mad?  Did Hamlet start out pretending to be mad, and his obsession drove him to madness?  The reader gets insight into Hamlet's mental status through other characters and through Hamlet himself. If the characters had the information that Hamlet had about the murder of his father, would they have thought differently of his actions and his sanity?

Is Hamlet insane or genius? He is distracted and his mind is blank as he races towards an end where nothing matters as long as Claudius lives an eternal hell. His mind more complex than the family, friends, and readers know, an Einstein of his time, a true and composed genius. Broken, shattered, and soulless or vengeful, obedient, and truly cruel. Insane or intelligent that is for you to decide, but in this paper I will state my argument on why Hamlet is truly genius and a complete mastermind that drives the plot of the story to a disturbing end and a grucum finale in which murder and revenge are the subject of the matter.

In Act 3 Scene 4, as a result of Hamlet’s rash and reactive thoughts, he ‘Kills Polonius’. This act articulates Hamlet’s madness in his seemingly dismissive response to his murder of Polonius and the contemptuous treatment of his body. Hamlet through characterisation dehumanises Polonius as merely a “wretched, rash, intruding fool” who he will “lug the guts [of which] into the neighbour room”. Ultimately, Shakespeare characterises Hamlet as mad through his lack of remorse over his murder of Polonius. In these Scene, Hamlet’s madness is further conveyed in his verbal engagement with his father’s ghost to which Gertrude describes as a “Nothing at all, yet all that is I see…This the very coinage of your brain/ This bodiless creation ecstasy”. As Hamlet engages with an apparent projection of his mind, the contrast between Hamlet and Gertrude as she fails to see the Ghost, along with the connotations of hallucinogenic ecstasy, creates an image of Hamlet’s madness. This portrait of madness is further manifested in Hamlet’s comical repartee in Act 4 Scene 4 as Claudius asks Hamlet where Polonius is: “In heaven. Send a messager there if you want to be sure. If your messenger can’t find him, you can check hell yourself. But seriously, if you don’t find him within the next month, you’ll be sure to smell him as you go upstairs into the main hall”.

Insanity with Purpose In literature, no characteristic of a character's behavior is presented without greater purpose. In The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark written by William Shakespeare, Hamlet, the protagonist, poses to have gone mad to discover who is responsible for his father’s death. Shakespeare's tragic play highlights the eccentric behavior of Hamlet through his actions and inner thoughts. Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson both theorize that the meaning of madness must often be seen with a “discerning eye.” Shakespeare shows Hamlet's erratic behavior through soliloquies and interactions with King Hamlet's ghost.

     Claudius’ lies are effective enough to persistently deceive to play’s antagonist, Hamlet. Despite Hamlet’s disgust with Claudius for marrying Gertrude, and his view of Claudius as “a king of shreds and patches” (III.iv.104), Hamlet suspicion of Claudius as a murderer is preliminarily nonexistent. The appearance of a spirit claiming to be Hamlet’s dead father first alerts Hamlet to the actions of “that incestuous, that adulterate beast, /With witchcraft of his with, with traitorous gifts” (I.v.42-3). And yet still, Hamlet remains hesitant to believe that Claudius was the murderer, searching for complementary evidence. The play that Hamlet enacts -- designed to “catch the conscience of the king” (II.ii.562) --succeeds in revealing Claudius’ guilt, but does not provoke instant action on Hamlet’s part. So effective is Claudius’ manipulation of the royal circle that he manages to almost permanently stay the revelation of his guilt, and if it weren’t for supernatural intervention against an injustice, he may never have been exposed.

In the play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare madness is a prominent trait that many of the characters in the play come to possess. These characters go through a multitude of troubles throughout the play that makes this madness justifiable. This madness plays an immense role in the outcome of the play and events throughout it. Hamlet and Ophelia show this trait of madness in their actions throughout the play which ultimately have a detrimental effect on themselves and other characters in the play.

Hamlet, a play by William Shakespeare, is as much a mystery as a tale about depression, madness and sanity. Shakespeare reveals how the scourge of corruption and decay rapidly spread; and the emotional consequences that follow. Insanity, madness and depression are as intolerable as corruption and deceit; and just as intertwined. The play makes one ponder if it is possible to be sane in an insane world full of treachery, revenge, incest, and moral corruption? By examining the themes of melancholy, madness and sanity in Hamlet, Shakespeare details his character’s descent from depression to madness. Additionally, Hamlet’s psychological state can be

The tragedy of Hamlet by William Shakespeare is about Hamlet going insane and reveals his madness through his actions and dialogue. Hamlet remains one of the most discussed literary characters of all time. This is most likely due to the complex nature of Hamlet as a character. In one scene, Hamlet appears happy, and then he is angry in another and melancholy in the next. Hamlet’s madness is a result of his father’s death which was supposedly by the hands of his uncle, Claudius. He has also discovered that this same uncle is marrying his mom. It is expected that Hamlet would be suffering from some emotional issues as result of these catastrophes. Shakespeare uses vivid language, metaphors, and imagery to highlight how Hamlet’s madness