Reality Motif In Shakespeare's Hamlet

   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.

In the play by William Shakespeare, the ghost of King Hamlet approaches his mourning and depressed son, Hamlet, who is still affected by his death. The ghost explains to Hamlet how he died and demands that Hamlet avenge his death. Note how the ghost approaches Hamlet when he’s the weakest and still mourning to persuade and manipulate him into taking revenge for him. In Act one Scene 5 the ghost states, “If thou didst ever thy dear father love-/ Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.” The way King Hamlet words his request is more as a challenge; in which Hamlet’s love for his dead father can only be proven by carrying out whatever his father wishes. The ghost influences most Hamlet’s behavior, which not only affects the plot, but also the relationships with other characters. The ghost influences the relationship between Hamlet and his mother, Gertrude. He becomes angry at Gertrude because of her fast marriage with his uncle Claudius. Through the use of innuendos, antic disposition, and metamorphic plays, Hamlet makes it his duty to get King Claudius back for killing his father. Hamlet agreed to avenge his father without second thought. As the play advances, Hamlet begins to doubt the apparition. In act 3 Hamlet begins to have second thoughts and states, “The spirit that I have seen/ May be a devil…” This shows Hamlet’s inner conflict between listening to his father and avenging his death or following his ethics. To be sure that Claudius

As a result of Gertrude’s absence in Hamlets life during the time of his father’s death, Hamlet felt like he was invisible. He felt as if nobody loved him or was paying attention to him. Because he felt like nobody noticed him, he turned to acting like he had gone crazy. Gertrude was only paying attention to Claudius, and if Hamlet acted like he was crazy, it may draw the attention to himself

In the play Hamlet by Shakespeare, Hamlet is the prince of Denmark, son of King Hamlet and Queen Gertrude. He is also the nephew to Claudius. At the beginning of the play, King Hamlet has died. A few weeks after the death, Gertrude married Claudius. Hamlet encounters a ghost that appears to be his father. The ghost tells him that Claudius is responsible for his death and Hamlet sets out for revenge against Claudius. Throughout the play, Hamlet goes from normal to depressed. He acts out in a way that questions his mental state. You could argue that Hamlet was truly mad, however, Hamlet was not mad but instead he was normal.

To start, Hamlet shows his insanity through his blinding rage. While visiting his mother in her room to discuss his disapproval with her marriage, Hamlet becomes destructive. He throws his mother around the room, grabbing her and screaming at her. All this commotion scares Gertrude, his mother, and causes her to scream out “What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me? / Help, Ho!” (III.iv.23-33). Gertrude is so scared of her son and who he has become that she believes that he will kill her. This shows that Hamlet is delusional because he reaches a point in which he is threatening his mother, a woman whom his father’s ghost warned him about mistreating. Hamlets rage takes over his mind and does not allow him to think clearly.

In William Shakespeare’s tragedy, Hamlet, the protagonist, Prince Hamlet, is an inconsolable young man who struggles with the death of his father, King Hamlet. Hamlet is confronted by the ghost of his father in the first act and discovers the truth of his father’s death. The Prince is horrified at the disclosure that his Uncle, King Claudius has murdered his father. He also finds himself outraged by his mother’s hasty remarriage; however, the Ghost forbids him to cause her any harm. Hamlet promises to avenge his father’s death and conspires to feign insanity in order to carry out his vengeance against King Claudius. Throughout the play, many characters believe Prince Hamlet to be genuinely mad, which is exactly what he anticipates. His

Admittedly, in act III scene four the interaction between the ghost and Hamlet makes it appear as if he were mad. Hamlet speaks to the ghost of King Hamlet for why he has visited him and his future actions against Claudius in which the Queen responds with, “Alas, he’s mad” (I.iv.121). She say this as when hamlet asks her about the presence of the ghost she sees “Nothing at all” (I.iv.151). This demonstrates that Hamlet is in grief over the death of his father and is believing that the presence of the ghost is real, even though through the eyes of others, he is not real. Although the presence of the ghost allows for Hamlet to have justification for his actions towards Claudius.

Hamlet’s absurd actions began when he got a visit from his father’s ghost. As he was conversing matters with the ghost, he acknowledged that he may need to disguise himself with strange behavior (antic disposition) in order to not give himself away. He wanted to ensure that he wouldn’t make it conspicuous that he was planning to kill Claudius in order to achieve his own equanimity. Hamlet mentioned to Horatio, Marcellus, and the Ghost, “How strange or odd some’er I bear myself (As I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on)... ” (Pg. Act I Scene V Lines 175-177). He needed to surreptitiously act in a strange manner in order to convey the idea to the culpable King that he didn’t have a plan, although he did. Hamlet would not have given them the caveat that he would act mad if he actually was crazy. One who is mad will most likely not admit it, but Hamlet certainly admitted that he would be acting this way to communicate a certain impression. At the climax of the play, the queen claimed that Hamlet was mad when he interacted with his father’s ghost after he murdered Polonius. She vehemently claimed, “Alas, he’s mad” (Pg. 177 Act III Scene IV Line 109). She declared

Claudius also seems like a respectable king because he mourns the death of King Hamlet and tells “[the] whole kingdom to be contracted in one brow of woe” (21). Although Claudius seems to be a good king who is deeply saddened by the death of the late King Hamlet, he is actually a horrible man who murdered King Hamlet in a way “most foul,...strange and unnatural” (57). He took his crown and acted as if his death was an accident. Claudius makes it difficult for Hamlet to uncover the truth behind his actions because he constantly acts like nothing is ever wrong. After many different plots against Claudius, Hamlet prevails and the real Claudius is exposed. Claudius played an important role in the play because he reinforced the motif Seems Versus Is and showed the reader that although people can come across as honest and respectable, deep down they can have an evil side.

It is true that Hamlet becomes emotionally depressed regarding his father, mother, and uncle. However, his depression does not force him to go insane. In the beginning of the play, when the ghost informs him about the death of King Hamlet and Claudius’s involvement, Hamlet is aware that he needs to avenge his father. His emotions are hurt badly, and he plans to dig down to know the truth behind his father’s death. There are instances where a couple of castle guards and Horatio witness the ghost in the castle. Only after being informed from Horatio, Hamlet was able to see the ghost and converse with it. Hamlet plans so well to pretend to be insane that he tells his friend not to worry about his behavior; he is only acting. As the play progress, he becomes more successful in fooling people to believe that he is indeed insane. Nevertheless, this act of madness did not go out of his hands. He has an intended purpose of everything he is doing throughout the play. Also, he wants to know whether his mother is aware of his uncle’s crime and married him in spite of it. He suspects his own mother. What Hamlet actually did is, urge his mother to repent choosing Claudius over his father. “Such an act That blurs the grace and blush of modesty. Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose And sets a blister there, makes marriage vows As false as dicers’ oaths (3.4).” In this he tries to express his frustration and makes his mother realize that she has made a mistake by marrying Claudius. Furthermore, in one of the scenes in the play, Claudius confesses to killing King Hamlet. He says, “Oh, my offence is rank. It smells to heaven. It hath the primal eldest curse upon ‘t, A brother’s murder. Pray can I not. Though inclination be as sharp as will, My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent (3.3)”. This confession proves that what the ghost told Hamlet about his father’s death is true. Hamlet was not insane, he was however paranoid. In the article “Paranoid Personality Disorder”, it was mentioned that “people with paranoid personalities rarely confide in others, and tend to misinterpret harmless comments and behavior as malicious” (Paranoid Personality Disorder). This means that, when a person is emotionally

     When we first meet Hamlet, he is a sad, dark, loathsome figure; the loss of his father and the whoring of his mother have upset him indefinitely. Like a ticking time bomb, Hamlet’s noticeable temper reflects the storm of emotions and thoughts brewing in his head, and then like a catalyst, his meeting with the Ghost of King Hamlet brings his anger to a boil. With revenge in mind, Hamlet plans to fake his madness so that he may be free to pursue his father’s killer. Everyone, except his close friend Horatio, seems convinced that he is mad. Claudius however, fearful that someone will discover his evil deed, has also had his perceptions heightened by his guilt and he experiences chronic paranoia throughout the

Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, begins with the appearance of a ghost, an apparition, possibly a hallucination. Thus, from the beginning, Shakespeare presents the air of uncertainty, of the unnatural, which drives the action of the play and develops in the protagonist as a struggle to clarify what only seems to be absolute and what is actually reality. Hamlet's mind, therefore, becomes the central force of the play, choosing the direction of the conflict by his decisions regarding his revenge and defining the outcome.

Hamlet is trying to make his family believe that he is truly insane by his words. Hamlet says himself that he will be faking to be insane so that he can kill Claudius when he says “as I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put on an antic disposition”(1.5.58), an antic disposition is to act insane to seem harmless to Claudius. Also Hamlet says“Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me”(3.1.118). This shows that Hamlet is annoyed by his mother as she so soonly remarried after her father death and he insulting his mother. As the ghost said to Hamlet “leave her to heaven and to those thorns that in her bosom lodge to prick and sting her”(1.5.89), which was basically asking him to not physically hurt his mother but to make her feel ashamed for her actions that her consciousness overwhelms her and she comes to realize how offending of an act she has done. Gertrude is shocked when Hamlet starts to talk to the wall and she says “O gentle son, upon the heat and flame of thy distemper sprinkle cool patience! whereon do you look?"(3.4.132-141). As the ghost just talked to Hamlet and since Gertrude did not see the ghost she thought that Hamlet was talking to the wall. Hence Gertrude is convinced that Hamlet is insane as he is talking to the wall. It also was a move by Hamlet to talk to the wall to make Gertrude believe that he was insane, as it was all part of his plan to kill Claudius. Hamlet demonstrates another action of madness when he strikes

Shakespeare examines the theme of appearance and reality in his book-Hamlet. The dilemma of what is "real" is established at the very beginning of the play. Hamlet doesn’t know what to believe and devises a plan to find out. The old king Hamlet appears to be bitten by a snake, but in reality he was poisoned, the ghost appears as an apparition, but it’s actually real, and the play-with-in-a-play strongly depicts the theme of appearance vs. reality.

In the book of Hamlet, William Shakespeare introduces the character King Claudius in act one scene two. The character makes an impression of a powerful man who commands respect from every individual. Shakespeare portrays Claudius’ role as the most crucial and intriguing person. In the play, Claudius is the most mysterious, the most controversial and the most discussed character as many people look at him only to see a villain. As the play starts, Claudius is the King of Denmark, who has inherited Gertrude, and the uncle to prince Hamlet. As with the rest of supporting characters in the play, Claudius is underdeveloped to his complete potential (Mabillard,n.p). His major role that he plays in Hamlet is to spawn Hamlet’s anger and confusion