Mental Illness In Hamlet

Throughout the play of Hamlet, one of Shakespeare's most famous tragedy's the main character, Hamlet is faced with the responsibility of getting vengeance for his father's murder. He decides to pretend madness as part of his plan to get the opportunity to kill Claudius who was the suspected murderer. As the play goes on, his portrayal of a madman becomes believable, and the characters around him respond quite vividly. Through his inner thoughts and the obvious reasons for his actions, it is clear that he is not really mad and is simply an actor faking insanity in order to complete the duty his father assigned him.

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

Hamlet had a lot of things in his life gone wrong. For an example his father (the king at the time) was murdered by his own brother the new king. At the end of the book his mother and ophelia end up dead to. Hamlet was obsessed with his father being murdered and tried to seek revenge upon his murderer. At the end of the book hamlet ended up killing polonius because he thought it was Claudius (the new king). He was putting other people in harm's way too make claudius too confess. Hamlet has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) because of depression, self-destructive behavior, and unwanted memories of the trauma.

Throughout Shakespeare?s play, Hamlet, the main character, young Hamlet, is faced with the responsibility of attaining vengeance for his father?s murder. He decides to feign madness as part of his plan to gain the opportunity to kill Claudius. As the play progresses, his depiction of a madman becomes increasingly believable, and the characters around him react accordingly. However, through his inner thoughts and the apparent reasons for his actions, it is clear that he is not really mad and is simply an actor simulating insanity in order to fulfill his duty to his father.

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

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.

Did you ever notice there are many characters in Hamlet that have mental disorders? Hamlet has a few characters that could possibly be diagnosed with a mental health disorder. At the beginning of the story, Hamlets dad is possibly murdered and Hamlet's uncle, Claudius, takes over the king spot. Hamlet's father's ghost arrives in the castle, it causes suspicions with the whole remarrying right after the death. He becomes very confused on how and why his father passed away. Due to the confusion and questions Hamlet wants answered, he could have developed a mental health disorder in the process of trying to figure things out.

Great authors can develop the same idea in different ways. Shakespeare introduces the characters of Hamlet and Ophelia to mental illness throughout “Hamlet”. Hamlet a, Depressed and Monomaniacal Psychopath, runs off of the vengeance of his father to kill his uncle, King Claudius. Ophelia A victim of, hysteria and depression, cannot function without the support of her father and lover without this support she can loses the will to live. Shakespeare uses metaphors, gender, tone, and word choice to develop the progression of mental illness in his characters throughout “Hamlet”.

There were various ‘treatments’ used in the span of history to treat those who were affected by anything regarding mental health. Psychology, despite being one of the youngest sectors of science has a very undeveloped, horrific history when it comes to participants. “Madness is a generic term that includes behaviors considered deviant. Deviance is always culturally defined, and varies markedly from society to society.” ("Madness and Culture."). In the play, both Hamlet and Ophelia are affected mental health disorders deriving from the deaths of loved ones yet they both dealt with it differently. Arguments regarding Hamlet’s mental state are made based off his encounter with his father's ghost as well as his general behaviour. Hamlet’s friends often worry that when Hamlet and his father meet “there [King Hamlet] assume some other horrible form, Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason And draw you into madness?” (1.4.71-73). Nonetheless, this worry was often disproved throughout the play. Being described as having a ‘crafty madness’ by Rosencrantz disproves his madness theory. Moreover, there are various instances where Hamlet confesses to faking his apparent decent. With statements such as “I am but mad north-northwest” (Shakespeare 2.2.386) or “...am not in madness, / but mad in craft” (Shakespeare 3.4.188-189) show that Hamlet is fully aware of himself and how others think of him, showing that his acts are done on purpose and he is, in

In Shakespeare's tragedy, Hamlet, the character of Hamlet feigns insanity. For a person in his situation, having one's peers think of one as crazy can be quite beneficial. His father, the king, had just died, and he is visited by a ghost who appears to be his father's spirit. The ghost tells Hamlet that he was murdered by his brother Claudius, who is now the current king and who recently married the former king's wife. Hamlet vows revenge and, as a tool to aid him in that plan, convinces people that he is crazy. The fact that he is acting, as opposed to actually being insane, can be seen in Hamlet's conversations with a watchman, two childhood friends, and his mother. Also, there are many actions in the play that he would not have

In the book “Hamlet,” we see in multiple circumstances the idea of madness and the ways in with the main character displays it and how it is described in the book. Throughout the entire story, it is hard to understand Hamlet’s true emotion. Subsequent to the death of his father, Hamlet finds himself in the presence of a ghost in which tells him that his father was murdered and that Hamlet should seek revenge. After his endeavors with the ghost, Hamlet states, “How strange or odd some’er I bear myself (As I perchance hereafter shall think meet, To put an antic disposition on” (Act 1, Scene 5, 170-172). Hamlet tells Horatio that he will act psychotically or mad and for him not to think anything of it.

Having a psychological disorder fundamentally changes a person’s personality. It makes people unrecognizable to their friends and family while causing them to act in ways a normal person would never consider. One piece of literature that explores a person’s display of a psychological disorder is William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In the play, Hamlet, the main character, was so obsessed with seeking revenge for his dead father that he killed innocents and destroyed an entire royal family. Hamlet’s behavior in the play often matches the many symptoms of a psychological disorder described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition (DSM-5). Based on my reading and analysis of both Hamlet and the DSM-5, Hamlet can be

Did you know more than 42.5 million American adults suffer from a mental illness. Such as, depression, bipolar disorder or posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In hamlet there is many signs that some characters suffer from a mental health stress yet. Hamlet goes throughout a lot in this book. His dad dies and very soon after his uncle married his mother. This didn't sit well with Hamlet. Eventually Hamlet starts seeing and hearing a ghost. He figures out that it is his father's soul and he died. He learns his father was not only murdered but he was murdered by his uncle. He tries to find a way to prove his uncle guilty. Later on in the book he seems a little crazy and obsessive over his crush named Ophelia. He does everything he can to be with her but her brother and father do not like Hamlet and don't want Ophelia to be with him. Ophelia is torn on what to do but she ends up siding with her family with the fear of disappointing them. Hamlet gets taken on a boat and his friends try to find him and end up getting him. While he is gone Ophelia's father dies. When he comes back he learns that while he was gone ophelia had died. No one knew if it was just a natural death or if she had killed herself. From the way she was acting throughout this book it's pretty obvious that she took her own life because of the mental disorder she had been suffering from. Throughout this essay we will be diagnosing Ophelia. First we will be talking about all the possible mental disorders that

The World Health Organization estimates that there are three hundred and fifty million people living on this planet with depression. Due to this there has been countless research projects done on the individuals who suffer from this illness. From the research it has been shown that mental illness and extraordinary intelligence are linked in an interesting way. Professors and Doctors have coined the term “Tortured Genius” to describe those who struggle from mental illness because they are intellectually gifted. In the Medieval society that Hamlet lives in, he can be considered a tortured genius. Unlike most men, Hamlet would rather study abroad than fight in a war. His intellectual abilities have led him to become disillusioned with the society around him. Due to this, people around him make him feel like an outsider. Moreover, Hamlet’s intelligence is put to the test when he is visited by the ghost of his father and is instructed to seek vengeance for his father's death. This bothers Hamlet throughout the play because he must deal with the internal strife of being an intellectual while also trying to partake in a primitive activity. The world of Denmark in which Hamlet resides is full of distrust, disloyalty, and corruption. This is starkly contrasted with his internal beliefs and his high regard for education. These conflicting moral values lead to Hamlet’s initial inability to kill Claudius and ultimately results in his depression.