Hamlet's Insanity

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

Hamlet's rant to persuade her that Claudius is a bad man and the murderer of his father depicts his disrespect to his mother. For instance, he tells her, "You go not till I set you up a glass / Where you may see the inmost part of you." (III.iv.20-21) He is threatening his own mother! Later, he addresses her as "thou wretched, rash, intruding fool" (III.iv.32) Even though Gertrude's lust for Claudius aggravates him, Hamlet fails to show even the most fundamental respect to his superior. The relationship is full of disloyalty and distrust from Gertrude's part. First, she appeases, "Be thou assured... I have no life to breathe what thou hast said to me." (III.iv.201-203) It is assumed that she will listen to Hamlet and stay away from Claudius. However, in the next act, she displays her true loyalty to her husband, telling him that Hamlet is "in this brainish apprehension kills / The unseen good old man." (IV.I.12-13) This is partially contributed by her observations of her son talking to a ghost that she doesn't see. Polonius' death causes her to think Hamlet is dangerous, further driving the two apart. Her distrust to her son harms him by further solidifying Claudius' plan to execute him in England because the king sees him as a threat to the throne who is capable of killing. In the end, Hamlet and Gertrude's relationship take a bittersweet ending.

Hamlet puts off avenging his father’s death because of his severe Oedipus complex. Hamlet did not kill Claudius until his mother had already died. This is a sign that Hamlet did not want to hurt his mother because of the sexual feelings he had for her. Hamlet felt that killing Claudius would hurt his mother too much, and he could not do that to her. Hamlet wants to save Gertrude form Claudius because of his feelings for her, his incestual feelings, not maternal ones. Subconsciously the queen knows the effect she has on her son. Gertrude tries to play off that fact that’s she knows about Hamlet’s feeling several times in the play. Gertrude is very fond of her son and wants to protect him however she can. This can be seen in the play, many times even up to when Gertrude is about to die. She tries to save Hamlet from drinking the poison himself. She also decided not to tell Claudius that Hamlet knows what Claudius has done.

Gertrude appears oblivious to the fact that Claudius killed King Hamlet to take over the crown and to have her. Her decision to marry her deceased husband’s brother had a lot of people questioning her sanity also. “The funeral baked meats Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables” (Shakespeare 17). Gertrude had gotten married so quick after the funeral of King Hamlet that the food from the funeral catered for the wedding. During the play that Hamlet produced to show people what Claudius had done, she was blind to the fact that it was actually Claudius that he was talking about. Due to Hamlet knowing the truth, Claudius has been trying to kill him.

Throughout Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, the main character, Hamlet, must seek revenge for the murder of his father. Hamlet decides to portray an act of insanity, as part of his plan to murder Claudius. Throughout the play, Hamlet becomes more and more believable in his act, even convincing his mother that he is crazy. However, through his thoughts, and actions, the reader can see that he is in fact putting up an act, he is simply simulating insanity to help fulfil his fathers duty of revenge. Throughout the play, Hamlet shows that he understands real from fake, right from wrong and his enemies from his friends. Even in his madness, he retorts and is clever in his speech and has full

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.

Hamlet caused much of the conflictions and actions seen throughout the play starting with just enhancing people's emotions to a vast range of multiple deaths to almost all the people within the play. Hamlet’s tainted state of mind brought upon many negative instances, as the question stood if his madness was insanity or pure shrewdness. Hamlet was oblivious to the affects of his madness on other people even his own love. Hamlet proceeds to protest Ophelia as well as women by saying “Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?

Claudius is ultimately revealed as the antagonist of Hamlet because he removed the good from his life, becoming the prime opposition of Hamlet. He is then faced with the king’s direction to avenge his father’s death by doing anything it takes to reveal the crimes of Claudius. Although not the chief antagonist, another opposition to Hamlet is his mother, whose crime is also revealed by the deceased king Hamlet. The king tells Hamlet how his wife betrayed him when he comments, “whose love was of that dignity that it went hand in hand even with the vow I made to her in marriage, and to decline upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor to those of mine” (I.vi.786-791). Queen Gertrude has also crushed Hamlet’s belief of his mother’s faithfulness by forgetting her vows and looking to Claudius’ gifts and love when she should be remembering king Hamlet. Both Claudius and Gertrude threw Hamlet’s integral foundations out the window, leaving Hamlet infuriated and ready to do what it takes to avenge his father’s death and accuse his opposing family of their crime against him.

Not only does Gertrude betray Hamlet by making him further depressed, but she also takes away the possibility of Hamlet becoming King. While she loves Hamlet, she loves her ex-husband’s murderer more. Hamlet wants to become King after his father’s death, but is no longer able to, because Claudius “popped in between the election and my hopes” (5.2.65). Instead of fulfilling her son’s hopes and dreams, she supports Claudius’ desire for the throne by marrying him. Thus, this makes Hamlet develop hatred towards his uncle Claudius and Gertrude, destructing the love between the family.

Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays. In it, a young, Danish prince struggles with the death of his father and the betrayal of his mother. This struggle is so profound; it shakes its main character Hamlet to the core and brings him to the brink of sanity. Shakespeare uses madness to convey important information throughout the play especially through Hamlet and his love interest, Ophelia. Hamlet does not always appear to be mad, in fact throughout the play his sanity is questioned by the reader and other characters. Whether real or faked, Hamlet and Ophelia’s madness reveal to us more about their characters, opinions and secrets than their regular discourse.

Shakespeare develops Hamlet’s character in relation to claudius. Claudius said, “We pray you, throw to earth this unprevailing woe, and think of us as your father” (Shakespeare 24). Claudius is telling Hamlet to forget about his father’s death and to start thinking of him as his father. He then said, “And we beseech you, bend you to remain here in the cheer and comfort of our eye, our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son” (Shakespeare 26). Claudius wants to get close to Hamlet. So he wants Hamlet to stay in Denmark with them. He really wants a good relationship with him. But Hamlet is being odd and distant. He then said, “I entreat you both that, being of so young days brought up with him and since so neighbored to his youth and ‘havior, that you vouchsafe your rest here in our court some little time so by your companies to draw him on to pleasure and to gather, so much as from occasion you may glean, weather aught, to us unknown, afflicts him thus that, opened, lies within our remedy” (shakespeare 28). Claudius wants to know everything about Hamlet. But he knows that Hamlet

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.

Gertrude realizes Hamlet’s madness after this and speaks to Claudius about it. Hamlet is so paranoid that he kills the once love of his lives father and doesn’t even feel guilty about it even after he finds out who it truly was behind that curtain.

is the theme of Hamlet’s madness. Shakespeare left it up to the audience to decide whether he

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