In the tragic play, Hamlet written by William Shakespeare, many people consider the main character to be insane. They believe this because Hamlet himself, pretends to be a mad man throughout the tragedies he endures. What one must do is study how he thinks and the rationality he shows during these disasters, all the while fooling everyone he is going mad just to get revenge on the new King. “Hamlet is never insane. He may approach the brink of insanity but he backs away and instead chooses to act insane in order to achieve his ends and eventually victory over Claudius,” it is all just part of the bigger plan.
Hamlet gets the idea to fake insanity at the beginning of the play when Horatio tells him that he sees the ghost of King Hamlet at night in the castle. Hamlet does not believe Horatio at first, but then he sees the ghost with his own eyes, and follows it outside. The ghost begins his story telling Hamlet how he actually dies, from uncle Claudius dripping poison into his ear while he sleeps, and he wants him to get revenge. The King means a great deal to young Hamlet, as any father does to their son, and he will do anything to make sure the murderer gets what they deserve. And so after a long soliloquy by Hamlet expressing his emotions and thoughts towards the tragedy, he starts plotting, “…How strange or odd so e'er I bear myself/As I perchance hereafter shall think meet/To put an antic disposition on…” (1.5.189-191). In translation, he is saying sometimes it is best to fake insanity. The reasoning behind this is not to do with mental stability but with his rationalism. Only someone stable could come up with a plan so rational and clever.
Hamlet’s idea to fake lunacy makes people not take his actions seriously, which gives ...
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... other option than to call him insane by how he acts. As the reader or being a part of the audience, one sees the real Hamlet and who he really is, a completely sane man just really good at feigning.
In the tragic play, Hamlet written by William Shakespeare, the main character just skims over the border of becoming mad. Hamlet’s insanity starts when he finds out how his father actually dies, and wants nothing but revenge on his deceitful uncle. He pretends to be unsound in order to acquire time to plot the retaliation, “Hamlet is never insane. He may approach the brink of insanity but he backs away and instead chooses to act insane in order to achieve his ends and eventually victory over Claudius.” With all the tragic events that he goes through and everything he endures, it is hard to believe that Hamlet never reaches true insanity, he just allows one to think it.
Throughout William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, Hamlet undergoes a transformation from sane to insane while fighting madness to avenge his father’s death. The material that Shakespeare appropriated in writing Hamlet is the story of a Danish prince whose uncle murders the prince’s father, marries his mother, and claims the throne. The prince pretends to be feeble-minded to throw his uncle off guard, then manages to kill his uncle in revenge. Shakespeare changed the emphasis of this story entirely, making Hamlet a philosophically minded prince who delays taking action because his knowledge of his uncle’s crime is so uncertain. To begin with, Hamlet portrays himself as sane.
In Shakespeare’s play Hamlet the main character Hamlet experiences many different and puzzling emotions. He toys with the idea of killing himself and then plays with the idea of murdering others. Many people ask themselves who or what is this man and what is going on inside his head. The most common question asked about him is whether or not he is sane or insane. Although the door seems to swing both ways many see him as a sane person with one thought on his mind, and that is revenge. The first point of his sanity is while speaking with Horatio in the beginning of the play, secondly is the fact of his wittiness with the other characters and finally, his soliloquy.
In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the title character is insane. He kills a person, sends two more to their doom, plans another’s death, and is both suddenly active and haltingly inactive at various points in Shakespeare’s play. Yes, in certain circumstances all of these may be enacted by a person of sane character, but any examination of the play will show that Hamlet is not a sane character.
Throughout Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, the main character, Hamlet, must seek revenge for the murder of his father. Hamlet decides to portray an act of insanity, as part of his plan to murder Claudius. Throughout the play, Hamlet becomes more and more believable in his act, even convincing his mother that he is crazy. However, through his thoughts, and actions, the reader can see that he is in fact putting up an act, he is simply simulating insanity to help fulfil his fathers duty of revenge. Throughout the play, Hamlet shows that he understands real from fake, right from wrong and his enemies from his friends. Even in his madness, he retorts and is clever in his speech and has full understanding of what if going on around him. Most importantly, Hamlet does not think like that of a person who is mad. Hamlet decides to portray an act of insanity, as part of his plan to seek revenge for his fathers murder.
Throughout Shakespeare?s play, Hamlet, the main character, young Hamlet, is faced with the responsibility of attaining vengeance for his father?s murder. He decides to feign madness as part of his plan to gain the opportunity to kill Claudius. As the play progresses, his depiction of a madman becomes increasingly believable, and the characters around him react accordingly. However, through his inner thoughts and the apparent reasons for his actions, it is clear that he is not really mad and is simply an actor simulating insanity in order to fulfill his duty to his father.
Shakespeare 's play "Hamlet" is about a complex protagonist, Hamlet, who faces adversity and is destined to murder the individual who killed his father. Hamlet is a character who although his actions and emotions may be one of an insane person, in the beginning of the book it is clear that Hamlet decides to fake madness in order for his plan to succeed in killing Claudius. Hamlet is sane because throughout the play he only acts crazy in front of certain people, to others he acts properly and displays proper prince like behavior who is able to cope with them without sounding crazy, and even after everything that has been going on in his life he is able to take revenge by killing his
In Hamlet, he seems to be mad, but there is a question that everyone asks when reading or watching this play “was it, or was it not true that Hamlet was faking his insanity, really suffering, or maybe even both.” First, this is what insanity is: insanity is acting crazy, but not knowing that they’re acting crazy. Also, it’s going through a lot of stress at the same time causing you to act stranger then a normal person. Hamlet was not totally insane. It doesn’t fit.
Many people question the psychological condition of the character Hamlet in the sixteenth century play Hamlet written by William Shakespeare. One of the reasons that the mental health of hamlet is in question by many people is the result of hamlet's actions as well as his reactions to events that occur during the play. Some people argue that the character Hamlet is insane, while others may argue that his insanity can be justified by several means such as his need for justice of his father's murder. However, Hamlet's need for justice or revenge does not necessarily justify Hamlet's behavior in the play. In addition, Hamlet's behavior falls into several categories of insanity such as shizophrenia. Therefore, there are many ways in which it can be proven that hamlet may truly be insane.
Logan Gaertner Mrs. Amon English IV 1 March 2014 Is Hamlet’s Insanity Real? Is Hamlet truly insane? While the play is not extremely clear on the matter and often contradicts itself, many of Hamlet’s wild ramblings and words of nonsense seem to be not the true words of a madman. Hamlet says that he is merely “putting on an antic disposition” (Act 1, Scene 5, Line 181). He admits very early on in the play that his insanity will be nothing more than a ruse to fool those around him.
Shakespeare's play "Hamlet" is about a complex protagonist, Hamlet, who faces adversity and is destined to murder the individual who killed his father. Hamlet is a character who although his actions and emotions may be one of an insane person, in the beginning of the book it is clear that Hamlet decides to fake madness in order for his plan to succeed in killing Claudius. Hamlet is sane because throughout the play he only acts crazy in front of certain people, to others he acts properly and displays proper prince like behavior who is able to cope with them without sounding crazy, and even after everything that has been going on in his life he is able to take revenge by killing his father's murderer. In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare Hamlet is sane but acts insane to fulfill his destiny of getting vengeance on his father's murderer.
The question of Hamlet’s insanity is a question raised by many people, is Hamlet a great actor, or has he lost complete sense of what’s real? There is no right answer, there is no wrong answer, many readers have different perceptions on what really was going through Hamlet’s head. My perception is that hamlet comes full circle with his insanity, and at points lets it get the best of him, and brings him down to a extremely low point.
Throughout the Shakespearian play, Hamlet, the main character is given the overwhelming responsibility of avenging his father’s "foul and most unnatural murder" (I.iv.36). Such a burden can slowly drive a man off the deep end psychologically. Because of this, Hamlet’s disposition is extremely inconsistent and erratic throughout the play. At times he shows signs of uncontrollable insanity. Whenever he interacts with the characters he is wild, crazy, and plays a fool. At other times, he exemplifies intelligence and method in his madness. In instances when he is alone or with Horatio, he is civilized and sane. Hamlet goes through different stages of insanity throughout the story, but his neurotic and skeptical personality amplifies his persona of seeming insane to the other characters. Hamlet comes up with the idea to fake madness in the beginning of the play in order to confuse his enemies. However, for Hamlet to fulfill his duty of getting revenge, he must be totally sane. Hamlet’s intellectual brilliance make it seem too impossible for him to actually be mad, for to be insane means that one is irrational and without any sense. When one is irrational, one is not governed by or according to reason. So, Hamlet is only acting mad in order to plan his revenge on Claudius.
While it is said that Hamlet acted to be insane towards his goal of vengeance, his emotionally depressed state causes his mental sanity to deteriorate. Not to say that he was a madman out of touch with reality, but a man who was driven to insanity by thought. His behavior throughout the play, especially towards loved ones, is inconsistent and uncontrolled. Hamlet first shows signs of his madness with his mother Gertrude. She tries to explain to Hamlet that he has offended his stepfather, Claudius.
In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the main character, Hamlet, is often perceived by the other characters in the play as being mentally unbalanced because he acts in ways that drive them to think he is mad. Hamlet may very well be psychotic; however, there are times when he “feigns insanity” in order to unearth the truth surrounding his father's death. This plan seems to be going well until Hamlet's mental state slowly begins to deteriorate. What began as an act of insanity or antic disposition transitions from an act to a tragic reality. After studying Hamlet's actions, one will notice that as the play progresses, his feigned insanity becomes less and less intentional and devolves into true mental illness.
When Hamlet is with a trustworthy friend, he is rational and symptom-free; as soon as those persons appear, however, whom he wants to convince that he is mad, he changes his behavior so as to implant different explanations in their minds for his noticeable irrational behavior. With Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, he makes believe that the reason for it is frustrated ambition; with the Queen and King, that it is their marriage that has upset him; and with Polonius and Ophelia, that it is frustrated love that has driven him mad. These rapid and clumsy changes from rational speech with those he trusts to irrational conversation with those whom he wishes to impress are strong evidence of fraud.