Hamlet Insanity Analysis

An act of revenge isn’t insanity, it is merely an act of purely benevolent love that is thoroughly thought out. Hamlet must patiently wait for the precise moment to fulfill his revenge plot as the last act of love for his deceased father, Old King Hamlet. Out of the many Shakespearean plays that are analyzed punctiliously, the play Hamlet has had continuous scrutinization over Hamlet’s sanity. I believe he is feigning madness and that he is sane. At the beginning of the play Hamlet clearly, tells Horatio he will be acting strangely. An individual who is to be proclaimed insane should not have the level of self-control that Hamlet has. If Hamlet was insane, he would not have had the mental capacity to formulate his cunning maneuver to expose Claudius as the perpetrator. Furthermore, showing his love for his family and willingness to vindicate should not be deemed as insanity.

His plan to make himself be seemingly insane is the only exposed to his closest companion, Horatio. “How strange or odd some’er I bear myself / As I perchance hereafter shall think meet/To put an antic disposition on)” (67). Hamlet is explaining to Horatio that if he is to act crazy in his ways, that it is simply an act to fool. “ His plan to act insane provides him with the means with which to act and speak in ways which would, under normal circumstances, not be tolerated” (1). The author is arguing that the reason for Hamlet’s act of insanity is to depict an image of himself that will be unsuspecting to Horatio, in order to pull off his plot of revenge. Hamlet primarily tells his most loyal asset that the insanity is a lie.“That I essentially am not in madness, but mad in craft” (183). It is suggested through this quote that Hamlet is saying his plan is so far fetched, it may seem like madness but it is not he that is mad. Moreover, it can then be assumed his act is only one his friend knows