Madness And Madness In Hamlet

Madness

“Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence.”

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People go mad all the time, mad in love, or mad in hatred, or just plain mad in general. After a close relative passes away, the feeling one experiences varies in each person. A person could be feeling empty, lonely, and to sometimes depress, is a natural feeling we all have as humans. Hamlet show’s a great example of madness. The beginning of the play, Hamlet originally appears to act mad when he hears of his father’s murder. At the time he speaks "wild and whirling words." (Act 1, Scene 5) Towards the middle of the book Hamlet’s “act” takes a turn for the worse, where he allows his madness to stem into him losing touch with reality. Also another act of madness in this play would be Ophelia, as her undying love for Hamlet drives her into the grave.

Hamlet's behaviour becomes more skeptical as this play progress’. The events he has to manage emotionally are very difficult, he is dealing with the morals of right or wrong. To kill his uncle because he has a hunch, or to not kill. Showing he is submissive to the new King, he states “It is not, nor it cannot come to, good; But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue!”(Act 1, Scene 2)… This shows he has suspicion, but is choosing to bite his tongue and not say a peep. But holding in this kind of assumption turns Hamlet down a path of depression and uncertainty. He questions his life several times throughout this play, deciding whether to live a lie or to die a coward. This behaviour and assumptions of his uncle’s guilt of killing his beloved father came from his father's ghost in his mother's chamber. Every other time the ghost appeared someone else has se... ... middle of paper ...

...h when he stabbed Polonius through the arras. “How now! a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead!" (Act 3, Scene 4). This shows that Hamlet's madness is no longer feigned when he does not kill Claudius and instead kills Polonius, the wrong person, in such a rash manner. In addition, Hamlet murders without sight of what he is doing, which displays his loss of reason for putting an “act” of madness on.

Affected by his father death, prince Hamlet madness is a way to escape from the world he is suffering from. Which makes me truly believe he acted in the manor he did to relieve the depress, sorrow, and hardship in his life. Hamlet’s actions relay this message thoroughly. Several times throughout the play he explains he is only being mad when he chooses to be; "I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.”(Act 2, Scene 2).

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