Mask Of Madness In Hamlet Research Paper

There is a distinct division of opinion among the other characters of the play about Hamlet's sanity and the split is along gender lines. Ophelia and Gertrude both state that Hamlet has gone mad, but the major male characters, on the other hand, like Polonius think that there is "method" in Hamlet's "madness," that his insanity is a surface mask to shield him as he plans the darker purpose of revenge. Since Hamlet is disturbed by the sudden death of his father and his mother's marriage to his uncle, King Claudius, the abnormality of his behavior to some extent is also understandable. Hamlet is naturally withdrawn, dark, and passive in the wake of those traumatic events. He also shows this when he constantly releases his anger with lines like "How (weary), stale, flat, and unprofitable seems to me all the uses of this world!" His self-exile and his self-reproach are essentially normal reactions to a series of events that he must avenge at his dead father's command but without further direction against a powerful chain of power within the guilty King.

     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.

After a long meditation on the nature of being and death, Hamlet catches sight of Ophelia. As she attempts to return some of the remembrances that Hamlet gave when courting her, Hamlet caustically questions Ophelia’s honesty. He denies ever having given Ophelia anything and continues to erratically claim that he loved her once before declaring that he never loved her at all. The problem here is that no one knows the exact intent of Hamlet as he claims to love Ophelia amidst a number of happenings that questions how genuine his love towards Ophelia. Not only does he doubt her honesty because he knew about her plan with Polonius and Claudius to eavesdrop on him, he is unsure of her purity and her love for him and he tells her, “get thee to a nunnery” rather than give birth to sinners ( ). Increasingly agitated, Hamlet condemns marriage itself, saying that no more marriages should be allowed, before exiting the room and leaving Ophelia in shambles. Looking deeper into the behavior that Hamlet demonstrates in this scene, there is completely no love that he shares with Ophelia. In a way, Hamlet seems convinced that Ophelia is the love of her life, but yet he has the behavior of insulting her and not giving her the priority that she needs. His character portrays a man who cannot be connected to his self and this leads him to a number of problems as regards the way he treats Ophelia. It is not just the feelings that Hamlet has towards Ophelia that describes his love for her but his actions say a lot on the feeling that is in the inside. Reaching to an extent that he can

I disagree with Gertrude's statement that Hamlet is mad. I ask you what the definition of madness, the relatively permanent disorder of the mind, a state of mind characterized by the inability to distinguish right from wrong. Indeed Hamlet only acts mad in front of certain people such as his mother, Polonius, Ophelia, Claudius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern who he knows are spying on him.

Hamlet’s plan from the beginning is to act insane to draw attention to the royal family, and his plan eventually works. “Something have you heard of Hamlet’s transformation” ( 2.2.3-4). When people start to notice that Hamlet was going insane, more attention is focused on the king and queen than before the incident. Also, even Ophelia believes that he is mad: this leads to her being watched over by her father, and eventually leads to her suicide when she drowns herself. He is such a good actor that even his mother thinks that he is insane. “O, he is mad, Laertes” (5.1.272). Gertrude is more in love with Claudius than she is with Hamlet. This is proven when she jumps to Claudius’s side when he was accused of murder and immediately rats out Hamlet. Hamlet could be accused of being insane, but in the end his plan works out which proves that he is sane and in his right

Hamlet knows that she is helping her dad, Polonius, spy on him. He accuses Ophelia, and all women, of being a “breeder of sinners” (Shmoop Editorial Team 1). Hamlet orders Ophelia to a nunnery, but she cannot call him out on it because she is not supposed to know what the word means. This is not the only criticism that Hamlet calls out to Ophelia. He says that if Ophelia is to marry a man, she will turn her husband into a monster because she will cheat on him (Shmoop Editorial Team 1). Hamlet: “If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go, and quickly too. Farewell” (3.1.130-134).

Prior to his father’s death, Hamlet is portrayed as perfectly sane. Hamlet is friends with Horatio, Guildenstern, and Rosencrantz. Such friendship depicts sanity, as only sane people can make friends. Hamlet has an affection towards Ophelia. This also defines sanity. It means that Hamlet is normal and has feelings just like any other person. Sanity involves being able to make right decisions. Throughout the play, Hamlet is able to make rational decisions, just like a sane man would do. When his father’s ghost appears, he resolves to speak rather than running away. Hamlet also displays rational thinking when during the court scene he is able to cleverly prove that Claudius killed his father. In Act 2, Scene 2, Hamlet displays rational thinking and the know-how that his father was murdered, contrary to the belief that he died of other causes. Hamlet says, “That I, the son of a

Shakespeare also exemplifies contrast of mental illness and wellness between characters in the play Hamlet. As the characters, Ophelia and Hamlet both endure the stress of a father's death their actions begin to change. This makes it easy for a reader to perceive the difference between Hamlet, Ophelia, and the other characters in the play. Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most complex characters, his insanity is often a subject of debate. The article “Mechanics of Madness in Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear” states that “he is an apt example of the complexities of the human psyche which are often beyond comprehension” (Ebsco). To find out the answer to the ultimate question of whether Hamlet is insane, comparing his actions to those of other characters would be helpful. At the beginning of the play both Hamlet and Horatio are trusted when the ghost appears to the guards. However, soon after Hamlet begins to spiral into insanity. In Act Two, Scene Two Hamlet talks with Polonius and this is the first time a reader can see Hamlet start to act unstable. Hamlet begins with “You are a fish monger” (190), and after Polonius corrects he continues to act deranged, by the end of their conversation Polonius is convinced “though this be madness” (223), meaning that he believes Hamlet is mad. However, Hamlet seems to be able to control his madness, which is why people often think that he is just acting. But by the end of the play Hamlet, similar to Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, has hallucinations. He sees his father’s ghost again, but this time no one else can see it. Hamlet asks his mother, “Do you see nothing here?” (3.4, 150), and she answers with “Nothing at all” (3.4, 151). Comparing Hamlet’s actions to his Mother’s in this scene creates a sense that Hamlet’s acting mad and need for revenge has caused his to change his mental state. Ophelia, also driven mad by her father's death, plus Hamlet's twisted love for her can also be compared to Hamlet throughout the play to see that she is sane at the beginning, but just as mad as Hamlet, if not more, by the end. Ophelia at the start of the play is trying to help the King and her father to catch Hamlet, what she thought was to help him. However, after her lover, Hamlet,

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

   Hamlet's public persona is a facade he has created to carry out his ulterior motives. The outside world's perception of him as being mad is of his own design. Hamlet is deciding what he wants others to think about him. Polonius, a close confidant of the King, is the leading person responsible for the public's knowledge of Hamlet's madness. The idea that Hamlet is mad centers around the fact that he talks to the ghost of his dead father. He communicates with his dead father's ghost twice, in the presence of his friends and again in the presence of his mother. By being in public when talking to the ghost, the rumor of his madness is given substance.

His feigned madness permitted Hamlet to express these emotions freely towards Ophelia: “...Get thee to a nunnery, / farewell. Or if thou wilt needs marry, marry a / fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters / you make of them...” (3.1.138-41). It was also important for Hamlet to be so vulgar towards Ophelia because it would not have been possible for him to continue being a caring loving boyfriend while attempting to avenge his father’s death. Lastly, by pretending to be mentally disturbed, it provided Hamlet with an excuse for any sinful deeds he would commit on his pursuit of revenge. Hamlet exemplifies this conception as he seeks for Laertes forgiveness for murdering his father Polonius: “If Hamlet from himself be ta’en away, / And when he’s not himself does wrong Laertes, / Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it. / Who does it then? His madness...” (5.2.230-33). Hamlet’s pursuit of the truth and revenge was much better accompanied by madness rather than sanity which gave Hamlet a clear motive to fabricate insanity in the play. In the midst of Hamlet’s supposed madness, the prince continues to speak rationally with certain individuals as well as maintain sensible and logical thoughts. This idea is depicted through his conversations with his good friend Horatio who is assisting Hamlet in his search for the truth behind Old Hamlet’s death. For example, before the

Throughout the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the main character Hamlet displays madness. Hamet claims to be feigning madness throughout the play, but the question is, is he really faking it, or has he really gone mad? It is really rather difficult to say whether in fact Hamlet has actually gone mad or if he is just an excellent actor. But the fact of the matter is that Hamlet seems to be feigning his madness in order to catch Claudius red handed for the murder of King Hamlet. The theme of madness begins in Hamlet in Act one of the play, after Hamlet sees the ghost of his father for the first time and discovers that Claudius poisoned his father, Hamlet is talking to Horatio and Marcellus when he says “Here, as before, never, so help you mercy, how strange or odd soe’er I bear myself -- as I perchance, hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on…”

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

In Hamlet, Shakespeare writes about another character who had really gone mad. After her father’s death Ophelia was robbed of her sanity. When comparing Hamlet to Ophelia one can see that Ophelia acts as an insane person would. All she is able to do is dance around and sing about death whilst Hamlet speaks eloquently even if others don’t understand what he is trying to say. Other characters pick up on each of their state of minds. After speaking to Hamlet in Act 2 Scene 2, Polonius says to himself “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.” (204), which means that while Hamlet may have been speaking nonsense there was a reason for it. In contrast when Ophelia speaks her brother says “Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge, / It could not move thus.” (IV.V.169), calling her insane and proving that she had completely lost her mind.

Originally, Hamlet acts crazy to make people that he was harmless although the main idea was to probe the involvement of Claudius in his father’s murder. Polonius says “Though this be madness yet there is a method in’t”(2.2.202-3). When the play progresses, Hamlet’s traits becomes erratic making him lose grip on reality since the situations to manage are emotionally difficult. Also, Ophelia is truly insane which makes him lose the vestige of self-knowledge and exposure. The love for each other eventually end up with madness for both Hamlet and Ophelia.