Hamlet: Insane or In Control

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The Tragedy of Hamlet is a play written by William Shakespeare about a young prince trying to avenge his father’s death. In the beginning of the play, young Hamlet is visited by the ghost of his father, who tells Hamlet that his uncle, Claudius, killed him. Meanwhile Hamlets mother, Gertrude, has gotten married to said uncle. Now it is Hamlet’s job to kill his Uncle-father to avenge his dead father, a task that may prove to daunting for Hamlet. In Shakespeare’s, The Tragedy of Hamlet, the author uses diction and syntax to make Hamlet portray himself as mentally insane when in reality, he is sane thorough the duration of the play, tricking the other characters into giving up their darkest secrets. During the first act of the play, Hamlet tells Horatio “Here, as before, never, so help you mercy, how strange or odd soe'er I bear myself (As I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on), that you, at such times seeing me, never shall—with arms encumbered thus, or this headshake” (I, ii, 170). Hamlet is telling Horatio that he is going to act crazy in order to lea...

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