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Shakespeare Major Paper

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Marissa Coe EN 360 Shakespeare I Major Paper 04/20/14 Throughout many of Shakespeare’s plays, one of the central themes with which he provides his readers is the topic of madness and insanity. In Karin S. Coddon’s, “Such Strange Desygns”: Madness, Subjectivity, and Treason in Hamlet and Elizabethan Culture, the author depicts the reasons behind the psychosis of Shakespeare’s characters and what led to their insanity. The author expresses insight for not only the themes of madness in Hamlet but also helps explain the aspect of madness in one Shakespeare’s other plays, Macbeth. Through her analysis, Coddon successfully offers her readers a deeper understanding of Shakespeare’s choice to portray his characters in this way and provides the …show more content…

Coddon’s idea of ambition being related to the psychosis in Shakespeare’s characters also becomes evident in his play Macbeth. Lady Macbeth, Macbeth’s wife is determined to kill the king so her husband can come to power and she can become queen (“Macbeth”). All of Lady Macbeth’s logical reasoning disappears and she slips slowly into insanity just as Hamlet does while attempting to prove Claudius is his father’s murderer. Coddon’s reference to Essex’s madness in her article gives an in-depth understanding of Hamlet’s insanity; it also allows insight for other Shakespeare characters, like Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Essex did not have respect for authority and often failed to honor Queen Elizabeth during the Elizabethan era in England. He eventually led a rebellion against Queen Elizabeth and attempted to seize control of the City of London. He was then arrested and convicted of treason. Essex’s rebellion against authority contributing to his later insanity correlates to Lady Macbeth’s disrespect to authority in various ways. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Lady Macbeth does everything in her power to manipulate her husband to kill the King of Scotland so she can become queen. She goes against authority, like Essex, and fools her king by inviting him into her home and having Macbeth kill him (“Macbeth”). In Coddon’s article she uses Sir Jon Harrington’s description of Essex to argue, “Essex’s madness, whatever its precise pathological nature, was profoundly

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