Hamlet's Madness

     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.

   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?

Hamlet, the eponymous hero of Shakespeare’s greatest work, descends swiftly into madness and paranoia after the murder of his father and the realization of his mother’s true, morally reprehensible, nature. As a result of these new responsibilities and extreme circumstances, Hamlet diverges from his usual, logical thinking into paranoia and over analysis, a condition that prevents him from trusting anyone. Hamlet, having been born a prince, is, for the first time, forced to make his own decisions after he learns of the true means of his father’s death. Another contributing factor to his madness is the constant probing of others into Hamlet’s sanity. These factors all contribute to Hamlets delay, and that delay contributes to the tragic

Many people, while reading and studying Hamlet, often question the sanity of various characters throughout the play. There are many signs throughout Shakespeare’s writing that indicate a lost sense of sanity in the main characters Hamlet, his uncle/father Claudius, his mother/aunt Gertrude, and Ophelia. Each of these character’s sanity plays a large role in the plot of the play.

The insanity of a person can be contributed through the trauma that is caused by a few events in a person’s life, but in the play Hamlet, William Shakespeare wrote the main character prince Hamlet experiences a few dramatic events from the play which his attitude changes throughout. In order to figure out whether hamlet is insane is by figuring out what the characteristics of his insanity. Characters see Hamlet in different shades of gray, each side more or less sane than others. His sanity can be his truth or his lie.

Many people have seen Hamlet as a play about uncertainty and about Hamlet's failure to act appropriately. It is very interesting to consider that the play shows many uncertainties that lives are built upon, or how many unknown quantities are taken for granted when people act or when they evaluate one another's actions. Hamlet is an especially intriguing production, both on the set and on the screen because of its uniqueness to be different from what most people expect to be in a revenge themed play. Hamlet's cynicism and insane like behavior cause him to seem indecisive, but in reality he is always judging and contemplating his actions in the back of his mind in order to seek revenge for the murder of

   Shakespeare's Hamlet is a master of deception. Hamlet decides to make Claudius believe that he is insane, but the scheme backfires when everyone, except Claudius, falls for it. Ophelia is one of those who believes Hamlet lost his mind, and when he does not return her love, she is so brokenhearted that she commits suicide. Near the end of the tragedy, Hamlet plays the part so well, that he convinces himself he is insane. Clearly, Hamlet's plan to put on an antic disposition is a tragic error.

Revenge for one’s family runs deeper than any valley, but for another it may only be sliver in the pines. Hamlet a strategic man, has strong emotions boiling within, while the constant struggle to prove a murderer which only seems to be out of his grasp. Hamlet himself, needs to prove that a peculiar individual by the name of Claudius, was indeed the perpetrator for the death of a father, death of a brother, and death of his king. Such acts were all for the end goal to become a tyrant himself. Accordingly, this will cover how Hamlet, through this battle, embodies the sense of insanity and yet alone a bit of sarcasm in order to keep sanity.

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”.

"To be or not to be -- that is the question" (III.i.64) -- one of the most quotes lines from one of the most well-known plays in general, and one of the most well-known of those penned by William Shakespeare, and that is the tragedy known as The Tragedy of Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark. Hamlet follows the titular character, visited by the ghost of his father beckoning him to murder our character's uncle as he killed him. The play then centers around Hamlet's plans to capture the guilt of and kill his uncle in revenge and the effects of his plans on those surrounding him. One of the points of Hamlet's plans is the use of his guise of a madman, which the character "dons" in order to deceive the Danish court in order to carry through his plans

Hamlet is often seen as a puzzling and complex character. One of the interesting aspects of his character is his real, or assumed, madness. Throughout the play, his behavior raised the question of “was Hamlet really mad and insane or was he pretending?” Some people will argue that Hamlet's insanity is a result of the grief and anger he has over his father's death and his mother's remarriage. Others believe he purposefully pretends to be insane, disguised as his true intentions to manipulate everyone around him.

Hamlet’s madness is indeed real throughout the play and is proven by the way he speaks, his actions, and from his ultimate act of pretending to be crazy. Everything Hamlet has done from after meeting up with the ghost of King Hamlet up until his death has turned him truly mad. Hamlet’s sanity has completely erased since he dedicated his whole being into acting crazy and following through with his plan to prove that Claudius is the murderer. His “antic disposition” is real and he did that to himself through his actions, words, and from being very committed to his act.

Furthermore, Hamlet’s madness within the play can be interpreted as a subsequent result of metaphorical poison in the mind. At the beginning of the play when Hamlet gets to know of his father’s death and his uncle re-marrying his mother, immediately it is seen that Hamlet shows traits of a poisoned conscience. He says:

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.

Most significantly, this dividing line between the sane and mad is first seen in the character of Hamlet. Throughout the play, one of Hamlet’s key struggles remains to be his inability to express his desire to rise to action in the name of his father, Old Hamlet, who spurs him to honor his name through revenge. As Hamlet is visited by his father and called to rise to the occasion and honor his father’s past name and untimely murder through his