How Does Madness Lead To Madness In Hamlet

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?

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

What is madness? Madness to most appears like a complex double-cross between reality and fantasy of the mind. William Shakespeare creates the use of madness throughout his play Hamlet, he portrays the sense of it as the breakdown of the mind, but also the breakdown of society. Within the play, two main characters welcomed madness into their lives, one is fake for personal reasons, and the other is real. Hamlet, prince of Denmark, had a plan to act mad to confuse Claudius. On the other hand, Ophelia the daughter of Polonius, goes insane due to many factors, such as grief, isolation, and distrust.

Throughout the play, Hamlet, Shakespeare applied a myriad of motifs to enhance the meaning and complexity of his work. One of the numerous motifs utilized in the play is madness. The question of Hamlet’s actual madness is profusely raised among readers in the Elizabethan era and is still brought up numerous times today. Some may assert that Hamlet was literally mad and others may argue that Hamlet’s madness was feigned. In the beginning of the play, Hamlet spotted his father’s ghost and discerned that his father’s death was caused by his uncle, Claudius. This situation initiated a whirlwind of events that took Hamlet on a downward spiral. These events are comprised of Hamlet’s actions to try to avenge his father’s death. They support and convey the impression that Hamlet’s madness was real. Although, Hamlet specifically claimed that he was not mad in the text. Hamlet’s madness was feigned since he confessed his reasoning for his antic disposition in order to avenge his father’s death and get revenge for Claudius’ actions.

Hamlet was a tragedy that highlighted the trials and tribulations of nobility and the treachery of power. The play showcased an unstable Prince seeking revenge using his insanity as a weapon. Hamlet was never actually mad but instead acting, using his insanity in his favor and manipulating everybody he came across. Hamlet was a chess player but instead of moving game pieces he moved people into the correct position so that he would be poised to take the king. Insanity is to Hamlet as the Piano is to Beethoven, merely an instrument used to advance his

Hamlet, a man who was initially honourable, thoughtful, reflective and philosophical, sets himself on a path of destruction, indecisiveness, recklessness and impulsive acts of violence when he makes a decision to murder the individual who killed his father. Hamlet, who although his actions and emotions may be of one of an insane person, it is clear that Hamlet decides to fake madness in order for his plan to succeed in killing the man who killed his father. In the play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, Hamlet is sane but acts insane to fulfill his destiny of getting vengeance on his father's murderer. Hamlet’s path to destruction is set when his motivation to kill his father's killer becomes too much and leads to the murders of his king, his friends, his lover, his mother and another man’s family.

In Hamlet, Shakespeare uses various characters to demonstrate the concept of passion versus reason. He uses his story to show the readers that passion and reason can both exist, but it is necessary to find a balance between the two. As evident in Prince Hamlet’s life, an overabundance of passion can be harmful to oneself and to others. Throughout the play, he faces an internal battle: he must choose between rationality and sentiment. This task becomes especially hard, however, when the ghost of Hamlet’s father comes back from the grave to share the horrible story of his murder. The late King has been poisoned and replaced by his own brother, Claudius, and, driven by sorrow and agony, Prince Hamlet decides to get revenge. Hamlet’s plan is to kill Claudius. This idea seems extreme. However, it is reasonable that the Prince would act irrationally as a coping strategy. In times of loss, especially after the loss of a parent, it is normal to experience overwhelming thoughts and sometimes “emotional issues” arise (“Adult Death of a Parent).

Much has been has been discussed of Hamlet’s madness and insanity. There have been endless arguments of whether his madness is feigned or unfeigned. Although, minimal arguments have been made about Hamlet’s pessimism. Hamlet is one of Shakespeare 's most pessimistic plays, and as such it delivers the message that in a fallen world, reality often fails to match the ideal. The human experiences held up for pessimistic contemplation in Hamlet includes death, grief, loneliness, insanity, loss of meaning in life, breakdown of relationships, and the corruption of the basic institutions of life. Hamlet, as the main character, is the embodiment of such pessimism throughout the play.

Through the course of the play, Hamlet both feigns madness and experiences real madness as a result of his father’s death and his quest to avenge him until his need for vengeance drives Hamlet into single-minded insanity; Hamlet’s psychosis is not that he is unable to control himself and that his actions have no thought behind them, but that the only thing that matters to him is revenge, and everything else does not matter. The constant questioning of Hamlet’s sanity is present in the play because Hamlet is neither completely sane nor completely insane. Hamlet’s fictitious mania is a cover for his real madness, to allow him to get revenge for his father’s death while not allowing Claudius to be completely sure that his death is what Hamlet

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 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”.

Hamlet portrayed extreme madness that recurred throughout the book. It started off with simply acting to be crazy, but eventually leads to true madness. Hamlet tells the queen “a beast… would have mourned longer, married with my uncle my father’s brother, but no more like my father” (1.2). Hamlet refers to his mother as a beast implying she is not human. Problems with Hamlet’s mother are not a huge contributing factor to his madness, but still fuel the problem. It also leads readers to believe Claudius could be a problem later on. This turns out to be true as he is one of the main sources to Hamlet’s madness. Another tremendous source is the ghost driving Hamlet to get revenge on Claudius. When the Ghost of Hamlet’s father comes back, he tells Hamlet “so art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear”(1.5). The Ghost explains what really happened to try to convince Hamlet to avenge his death. This drives him to insanity with the stress and pressure of should he, or should he not kill

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

Along with Revenge comes Hamlet’s streak of Madness, He feigns madness almost like a tool at his disposal. Hamlet first uses the illusion of his madness as a way of proving Claudius’s guiltiness. His madness acts as an excuse so that he can get away with strange behavior, and he won’t be held accountable for his actions. He feigns madness for so long that his depression over his father’s death and his mother’s remarriage pushes him into a madness which is not faked but rather quite real. He goes as far as to consider suicide. “To be or not to be, that is the question: Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and

In a New Historic analyzation, it is important to note Hamlet’s madness that leads him to paranoia, revenge, and murder. In Shakespeare’s Elizabethan era, madness was defined as “internalization of disobedience”. Using this definition, it can be interpreted that Shakespeare derives Hamlet’s lunacy from the plea for vengeance made by his father’s spirit. Hamlet feels blameworthy and that