In the play, Hamlet by Shakespeare, the noble Hamlet claims to be feigning great madness. However, the portrayal of a crazy madman is so intense and so convincing that Hamlet himself begins to actually slip into a great magnitude of insanity at certain moments in the amazing play. Some example of Hamlet actually slipping into madness are when, he kills the wise Polonius when Hamlet finds him spying on him while he is having a conversation with his mother. The second example of him going into insanity is when he performs the great speech about whether to be or not to be. The last example of him falling into a great state of insanity is when he kills himself after he battles Laertes to the death, and ends up drinking the same poison himself …show more content…
The reason he kills himself is because, death is impending on him after Laetes stabs him with a poison tipped sword, and he has nothing else to live for because King Claudius also dies. To further explain, Laertes is the son of Polonius and the brother of Ophelia, which is in love with Hamlet. In the final scene of the book, he stabs Hamlet with a poisoned sword which kills him, to avenge the deaths of his father and sister, for which he blamed Hamlet for. However, Hamlet is only to blame for the death of his father not for Ophelia's death. While dying of the same poisoned sword, he implicates King Claudius. In conclusion, Hamlet is indeed an insane psychopath, who started out playing an antic disposition which later just became worse and worse. The three reasons that prove Hamlet is insane, are first, the killing of Polonius in his mother's bed chambers. Second, is his famous speech about whether to be or not to be. The last thing that proves that Hamlet is not just pretending to be insane is in the final scene when himself and Laetes battle to the death, and when he drinks out of a poisoned gauntlet to speed up his
A thing a lot of psychologist people forget that hamlet is a character acting inside the play. During the entire play it is very easily noticed when he is acting as an insane person. The way he speaks and the words he chooses is evidence towards the idea of Hamlet being sane. Most modern day men act like Hamlet when he is insane but the modern men are not always seen
Would one be able to live a full prosperous life acting insane? The play Hamlet, written by William Shakespeare, is about a young prince who lost his father and has many issues dealing with his sanity and his family. Hamlet is not crazy because he says he is faking it, he may have severe depression, and he wants to avenge his father. Hamlet is faking being insane for his own sake.
Throughout the play Hamlet continues to act insane and even dies with the act continuing. Even after Hamlet gathers all the evidence that proves Claudius is the murder, Hamlet continues to behave in a strange way. When he mistakenly murders Polonius he does not react as a sane person would. This act enrages Laertes, who then wants to avenge his father’s death. Driven to madness by the murder of his father, Laertes, with the help of Claudius conspires to kill Hamlet.
As many researchers know there is much evidence for both his sanity, and his madness. But which is true? In the play, Hamlet is constantly talking to himself, which is already one sign of madness, but the things that he says to himself are murderous and even suicidal quotes. One of the quotes in the play being, “HAMLET: O, that this too too sullied flesh would melt, Thaw and resolve itself into a dew, Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
There are plenty of examples of Hamlet appearing mad, but there are just as many examples of Hamlet appearing sane, even intelligent. Hamlet is even aware of his madness, which can be seen in the quote, “What I have done that might your nature, honor, and exception roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness… It ‘t be so, Hamlet is of the faction that is wronged; His madness is poor Hamlet’s enemy” (273). Hamlet is clearly aware of his own madness, but this does not necessarily invoke his sanity. Hamlet still appears insane,
In the play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, as the play progresses Hamlet portrays himself as going insane. However, I believe that in reality Hamlet is really just acting as if he was insane to deter attention from his plot to kill Claudius, his father's murderer. For instance, at the very beginning of the play when Hamlet, Horatio, his good friend, and Marcellus see the ghost of Hamlet's father Hamlet makes them both swear that they will not tell anyone about the ghost. He also says, “How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself (
In Hamlet, Shakespeare uses many references to sanity and insanity. Throughout the play, Hamlet goes back and forth between sanity and insanity, whether pretending to be insane just to mess with those he does not like or to save himself from getting in trouble. Hamlet is actually one of the smartest characters in the play, which is why he can pull off acting crazy so well. Shakespeare uses this idea of sanity and insanity to help the plot change and take a different directions. One of the most discussed topics of the Hamlet is whether Hamlet is insane or if he was just pretending the whole time.
There are many examples of times where Hamlet seems truly insane. We have the time when he is talking with Polonius in the castle, after the King, the Queen, and Polonius were discussing the love letter that Hamlet wrote to Ophelia. Hamlet walks in reading a book, and Polonius asks “What do you read, my lord?” Hamlet replies with “Words, words, words.” “What is the matter, my lord” “Between who?”
The differences in their madness strongly support the assertion that Hamlet is, in fact, not truly mad. "The mad role that Hamlet plays to perfection is certainly a proof of Shakespeare's genius, but by no means a surety of the insanity of the prince, unless we be prepared to maintain that no one saves a madman can simulate dementia" (Blackmore). As Blackmore points out, his crazy behavior is such that only someone who is not mad could play the part so well. Again, a truly mad person would not have so much control over his actions and
Insanity is an idea that has been examined for a long time in numerous mediums such as films, music, plays, and even works of literature. William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” is no exception to that rule. Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most complex characters, and many scholars have been debating for centuries whether or not Hamlet is truly insane, or whether there is a particular reason for his odd behavior. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Hamlet merely pretends to be mad but in reality is sane.
Hamlet before his duel with Laertes begins to tell Laertes that at the time when he insulted Laertes and fought him it was due to his own mental illness which Hamlet proclaims was “madness” (V.ii.217-219). Hamlet 's mental state is sane because he tells Laertes that the reason for is actions back then was because he had become temporarily insane. Hamlet must be sane in order to identify whether he had gone insane because if someone was insane they would not care about the actions they had done. Hamlet’s actions are not those of sane person when he murders Claudius. When Hamlet realizes it was Claudius, who was at fault for his mother’s death, he becomes enraged and stabs him with the sword that had been poisoned at the tip.
An overwhelming amount of evidence shows that Hamlet faked his insanity to confuse the king and his accomplices. Often revered for their emotional complexities, William Shakespeare’s tragic characters display various signs of mental illness. Sylvia Morris notes “Hamlet contains Shakespeare’s most fully-developed study of mental illness, and has always intrigued commentators on the play.” (“Shakespeare’s Minds Diseased: Mental Illness and its Treatment”). When looking at the play, one can infer that Shakespeare makes the relationship between sanity and insanity undistinguishable from one another.
William Shakespeare tells the tale of a troubled man in his masterpiece, Hamlet. Imagine your beloved father dying and your mother marrying his brother shortly after. You’re left to grieve on your own. Instead of consoling you, your mother and uncle have a wedding and begin to share the same bed. This is what Hamlet suffers through in the play.
In the play, Hamlet, William Shakespeare reflects the common early modern beliefs and perspectives about madness by using the character development of the protagonist who feigns madness throughout the play. Given Hamlet 's status as a prince, current knowledge of madness during the time period, and the contrast of the different types of madness of other characters in the play, Elizabethan audiences would have found it plausible that Hamlet feigns madness as part of his plot to avenge his father 's death. This new historicist perspective steers the modern reader away from anachronistic psychological interpretations of the play. Hamlet’s status as a prince gives the character certain roles and expectations to fulfill, such as avenging his father’s
Hamlet is sane because he only acts mad in front of certain people, he told his friends of his plan of revenge, and the fact that many people continuously doubted his insanity. Hamlet only acted insane in front of the king and his chairmen. In other times, he acted completely normal. This is because to get revenge for the death of his father, he needs to buy time distracting King Claudius so that he can kill him. He admits to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that he is “but mad north-north-west.