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There are many factors in Shakespeare s Hamlet that lead us to think Hamlet is mad. Although if we really look into the reading and pay attention to little comments and gestures that he does throughout the play we come to a conclusion that he is just faking his insanity. Characters in the play accuse him of being mad for several reasons. Each one of them has his or her own theory to explain his so called madness.
Hamlets sanity is sprinkled throughout the whole play. Hamlet encounters the ghost in scene five of act one. First of all he does not seem stunned or surprised after seeing this spirit. Normally someone who comes across a ghost would either think he has gone mad or would just get scared and run off. Hamlet on the other hand speaks to the ghost as if he were just another character in the play. He listens to what the ghost has to say and from what he just heard he builds up plans and further thoughts to what may come about later on and what he should do.
A second reason in this scene that would lead us to doubt his insanity is the fact that he was not in the least surprised when the ghost had told him what happened to his father and the real cause of his death. Hamlet already suspected someone who was close to the old throw holder had done something to the late king and that it was not just a sudden natural death. The ghost s information serves as a foundation that solidifies Hamlet s suspicions. The significance of all this is that Hamlet uses these reasons to compliment the fact that he wants people to think he is crazy. By doing that he buys himself more time to look into his father s death. Hamlet only pretends to be mad so that his plans will not be found out by Claudius, Polonius or any other person that may be suspicious of his actions.
The ghost informs Hamlet of his fathers murder and demands that Hamlet takes vengeance. Without the ghost, Hamlets actions would seem much more insane. Hamlet is a very angry character in the play. He is angry with his uncle, his mother, and himself. This anger makes it easier for him to act crazy, and more willing to do crazy things without thinking first. That is one of the reasons why people assume he is insane.
They do not take into account that the anger and rage inside him compliment his temptation to act crazy. Hamlet plays everyone for a fool. Yes, there are times when he questions his sanity, like when he is alone, but he only does that because he has grown into his act of trickery and thinks he might be taking this play-madness too far. But he soon comes back to the reality that this is only to help him proceed into what he plans to do in the future. He fakes his insanity because it allows him to do several things that he otherwise would be unable to do.
In the beginning of the play he confides to Marcellus &# 038; Horatio that he is going to pretend to be insane, and then he proceeds to do so. His conversations with Horatio and the audience are well-reasoned and absolutely not mad chatters. He may be neurotic and he may question his own sanity, but neither of these factors make him crazy When it comes to Ophelia, Hamlet does truly love her. His feelings for her are genuine.
After having her treat him badly and the fact that his mother is married to his uncle, he comes to hate women. This does not mean his love for Ophelia has faded away. He is mad about the subject of the women in his life in the sense that he is angry, not insane. The two people in which he confides, Ophelia and Gertrude, the two people he thought he could trust and go to in times of pain and anguish have wronged him in a way and hurt his feelings. With respect to Ophelia, he would like to express his intense and strong anger towards her without raising suspicion in her or in others that he is in a crazy and senile state of mind. By doing that it prevents others in the royal family from thinking that Hamlet was planning actions of vengeance against his uncle, presently King of Denmark.
In act three scene one, readers speculate to whether what he says proves his insanity or just proves that he is going through anger and pain. Go to, I ll no more on t. It hath made me mad. I say we will have no marriage.
In this speech It hath made me mad does not refer to him as actually going insane, but rather refers to him as not being able to cope with all these problems that are facing him: His fathers murder, the quick re-marriage of his mother, the apparent unfaithfulness of Ophelia. All of these have driven Hamlet to a point where it is far too painful for him to bear with. If someone close to you had passed away, you would go through endless pain and suffering. Would you be called mad? Never, you would be called a poor person who is going through heartache and suffering.
This here is the same situation but instead of having one death, he has two people who are unfaithful to him, friends that spy on him and an uncle who wants him dead in fear of finding out the true story. Another factor that proves Hamlet is in the right state of mind is the fact that he asked the players to act out a play in which a king is poisoned in his sleep. If he were insane would he be this cunning and smart to try and get Claudius to regret his past actions? He knows what he is doing. He has it all planned out from the beginning. He predicts what will happen during the Gonzago play.
He tells his trusted friend Horatio to keep an eye on Claudius throughout the whole play to see his reactions. He was right, Claudius felt uneasy at the sight of someone acting out what he did to his brother. These smart moves and tactics prove that Hamlet knows exactly what he is doing. Hamlet does not kill Claudius when Claudius pretends to pray. He realizes that if he kills Claudius now, he will go straight to heaven.
Hamlet would be violating a religious belief against murdering another human being. Not only would this make him feel guilt, but it would also cause Claudius s soul to go unharmed and with no weights of sin. He wants Claudius to suffer and get judged fairly as he killed and murdered a human being. To do this he should find Claudius on his own away from holy ground or holy actions.
A madman would not think carefully of his plans to murder someone, he would just go and do it no matter what the occasion, no matter who was there. Claudius is afraid of Hamlet. He does not know what he is capable of. Madness in great ones must not go. By saying this Claudius proves to us that he thinks Hamlet might be faking his madness. He is starting to doubt whether everyone s theories of Hamlet s madness are true.
He means by this quote that since Hamlet is great and obviously not dumb he might be taking all of us for fools and fake his insanity. That I essentially am not in madness, But mad in craft. There good you let him know, Here, he himself admits to his mother that he is not mad, but just cunning and crafty with what he does and the way he comes about things. Hamlet is very intelligent.
He is acting crazy for various reasons, which I have proved earlier. If close attention is paid to the scenes where Hamlet and Horatio are alone, it is noticeable that he never acts strangely. Horatio knows of the ghost and the story the ghost has told, he also knows that Claudius is guilty and above all he knows, and swore to oath, that Hamlet is just using his craziness to solve the different tasks and problems he is faced with. Horatio, who in the end becomes the storyteller, knows exactly what happened and when he does actually unravel the story to whoever hears it, many listeners will agree when I say, Hamlet is completely sane.
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Research essay sample on State Of Mind Character In The Play
