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Hamlet Bipolar Essay

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To be Bipolar or not to be Bipolar? In Hamlet. the famous tragic play written by William Shakespeare, the main character, named Hamlet, learns the news of his father’s passing and shows signs of bipolar depression. As Hamlet’s friends and family notice something different and odd about their dear Prince his moods and actions have changed for the worst and they consider if he is truly insane. If someone, including Hamlet, should have bipolar disorder then he/she will demonstrate signs of rapid speech, lost sense of reality and become very distracted. Therefore, those afflicted with bipolar disorder have changed personalities as a result of a tragic event that spurs different emotions including rapid speech. In Shakespeare’s play, …show more content…

I’ll have grounds More relative than this” (2.2.627-633). As hamlet is confronted with second thoughts about his encounter with a ghost one could conclude that he might be making this up as he tends to have symptoms of a bipolar disorder. Researchers in An EMS Guide to Depression and Bipolar Disorder conclude that patients with bipolar disorder “ may have psychotic symptoms, which are a loss of contact with reality. These include delusions, which are ideas without a foundation, or hallucinations, which are the auditory, tactile or visual perception of things that are not actually present” (EMS World 1). These different character traits could support the conception that Hamlet might be a victim of bipolar disease as he may or may not be hallucinating about his ghost. It is unlikely that he is hallucinating to the plot of the play, but one could argue that with this defining symptom.
In the same fashion that Hamlet, and other potential patients with bipolar disorder, has lost sense of reality, they also tend to be very distracted. Once Hamlet has see his ghost his actions change immediately as when he sees Ophelia he is acting strange and not his normal self. As Ophelia tells her father about her strange encounter with him she describes as Hamlet “falls to such perusal of [her] face As he would draw it. Long stayed he so” (2.1.102-103). Hamlet is not acting his normal self as he just stares into Ophelia face while his past

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