How Is Hamlet Existentialism

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

Hamlet’s existential crisis begins with the death of his father and the remarrying of his mother. At this point, for Hamlet, the questions start pouring in; “to be or not to be” (Hamlet 3.1.57), and so on. From questioning his existence and fighting with himself about the purpose of his life begins to show the beginnings of the existential crisis that is soon to consume him. Also, this

The next area that questions Hamlet’s sanity is that of deaths though out the story. Polonius, who is hiding in Queen Gertrude’s room, is stabbed through the drapes by Hamlet because he thought it was the King. This might have been an accident, but Hamlet’s irrational behavior leads us to believe he is becoming impulsive and unforgiving. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are executed in England by Hamlet’s clever idea to change the name on the death warrant. Here is where Hamlet displays signs of rational thinking to save his own life. Hamlet stabs Claudius with a poisoned sword and forces a poison drink down his throat (Shakespeare, Hamlet Act 5 Scene 2 page 1105), his ultimate revenge. Then, with the same poisoned sword that was prepared to kill him, Hamlet cuts Laertes and he dies. (Shakespeare, Hamlet Act 5 Scene 2 page 1105). Hamlet’s total change in personality makes him appear to be “mad” at this point. All forms of sanity are now gone and any plot he had to avenge his father’s death resulted on chaos and his own death.

This all sets the stage for Hamlet’s mental state prior to learning that he was killed by somebody in his family. These themes of death and betrayal lead into the end of the first act when Hamlet is tasked by the ghost of his father to seek revenge against Claudius for what he did. Hamlet believes that he was “born to set it right” (1.5.190). The extremes of this line reveal that Hamlet believes that the whole reason for his existence is to avenge his father. This need for revenge drives Hamlet for the rest of the play. He wants justice for his father, but he also wants to punish Claudius for his murder and marrying his mother. He gives in to human nature when he starts striving to avenge his father’s death.

So, we can conclude that, Hamlet in this play is obviously not mature enough to handle the situation at hand. He needs to get himself out of his situation, and this is why he is contemplating suicide. He knows he is young and immature, too immature to not know how to handle everyone dying and turning their backs on each other. At this point the play is too chaotic for Hamlet to handle. But heck, that's what the whole rest of the play is for, to see if Hamlet pulls through or

He is internally reflecting on the morality of revenge. In existentialism, it is believed that the best way to live is for man to accept disorder and nothingness because ignoring it would mean settling into a delusional security blanket. If this blanket is torn off, we are forced to face it abruptly. Hamlet becomes conflicted in this way during the play. His father’s death, learning about the murder and adultery, and facing the morality of revenge all quake his previous orderly life.Now, he must figure out what is right and wrong and what to do as he contemplates the noble idea of avenging his father’s death versus his own misanthropic view of human nature.

Hamlet's madness is not in vain. As Polonius says in Act II, "Though this be madness, yet there is method in't" (109). The reason Hamlet is pretending to be insane is to exact revenge against his father's murderer, the King. He is aware that the King will be concerned about his behavior and he is right. After the play all the characters attend, the King is very disturbed. His reason for being disturbed is that he just witnessed a play which depicted the murder he committed against his own brother, the former King of Denmark. The King knows Hamlet knows of the murder and is aware that Hamlet may not be completely insane. Because he is afraid of losing his power and title of King, the King decides that Hamlet should go to England.

Shakespeare's play "Hamlet" is about a complex protagonist, Hamlet, who faces adversity and is destined to murder the individual who killed his father. Hamlet is a character who although his actions and emotions may be one of an insane person, in the beginning of the book it is clear that Hamlet decides to fake madness in order for his plan to succeed in killing Claudius. Hamlet is sane because throughout the play he only acts crazy in front of certain people, to others he acts properly and displays proper prince like behavior who is able to cope with them without sounding crazy, and even after everything that has been going on in his life he is able to take revenge by killing his father's murderer. In the play Hamlet by William

Throughout the Shakespearian play, Hamlet, the main character is given the overwhelming responsibility of avenging his father’s "foul and most unnatural murder" (I.iv.36). Such a burden can slowly drive a man off the deep end psychologically. Because of this, Hamlet’s disposition is extremely inconsistent and erratic throughout the play. At times he shows signs of uncontrollable insanity. Whenever he interacts with the characters he is wild, crazy, and plays a fool. At other times, he exemplifies intelligence and method in his madness. In instances when he is alone or with Horatio, he is civilized and sane. Hamlet goes through different stages of insanity throughout the story, but his neurotic and skeptical personality amplifies his

William Shakespeare 's Hamlet portrays as multitude of ideas, meanings and interpretations. In this essay, I will focus on analyzing Hamlet through the post-modern existential lens of nihilism. Nihilism has five main types; political, moral, epistemological, cosmic, and existential. Throughout the course of the play, Hamlet shows many characteristics that showcase these principles , such as apathy and despair. Hamlet is a nihilist character because through his actions of mania and despair he shows that life is overall meaningless. He also has a lack of respect for authority and a rejection of moral principles.

The first approach is philosophical, where Hamlet is suffering from all these feelings in the play like madness, metaphysical nausea, and ontological dolour because he is someone who reflects on human existence and about the situation he is in with the murder of his father and knowing who it was that killed him. He finds out that the world isn't what he had thought of it to be, but through this madness it has helped him to see through all the hypocrisy,insincerity and scheming ways of other people. The famous, “To be, or not to be, that is the question: whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. To die-to sleep, no more; and by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks…(Shakespeare 63)” is an example of existentialism for hamlet is contemplating if he should live or die with knowing what his uncle did to his father and with everyone out trying to get him and prove of his madness even his friends.

   Do we matter? Will anything we do endure? These are questions from existentialism. The dictionary defines existentialism as "the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for his acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad" (Merriam Webster). In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Hamlet struggles with the concept that nothing from our lives last and time grinds everything away. Hamlet's major conflict was his existentialist view of the world.

In the beginning of the play, there is a brief look of Hamlet pretending to be insane/mad. In act one scene two, Hamlet shows a soliloquy. He wishes his “dirty flesh would melt away into a vapor” and that there wasn’t a “law against suicide.” He becomes highly depressed or melancholy thinking of his father. He becomes even

This was only a façade to pull of the murder scheme. But as the play continued, Hamlet showed a transition to where those crazy thoughts were taking over his mind. He acted with less self control. He drove himself crazy, trying to kill Claudius, because he started to think of suicide. His acting brought the forth the end of his sanity.

In act one, scene three of “Hamlet,” Polonius states to his loved ones: “This above all: to thine own self be true (1, 3, 78).” This is a way of saying that nothing at all matters more to how an individual should act than their own honour, that they should be true to themselves and not engage in self-deception. Being true to one’s self also means to act in accordance with who an individual is, what they believe in and what they value the most in life. The need to be true to one’s self is at the upmost importance in society as this will cause an individual to truly achieve true personal happiness and self-fulfillment. To achieve true personal happiness and self-fulfillment, an individual must be truthful, take self-ownership and live in their