Madness and Insanity in Shakespeare's Hamlet - The Emotional States of Hamlet

Custom Written Essays - The Emotional States of Hamlet

Hamlet went through various emotional states because of different

unfortunate circumstances that confronted him. Yet Hamlet never went so far

over "the edge" so as to not come back from reality, yet for reasons

psychological, he procrastinated actions that he should have taken, until it was

too late. I will first discuss Hamlet, the origins for his queer behavior and

if it twas feigned or not.

In the first act we see that Hamlet is a sort of idealistic man coming back

to the world from university in Wittenburg. Coleridge described Hamlet in this

point of the play as a "Renaissance" man, who has never really come in contact

with the dark side of humanity. In the very beginning of Act 1 scene i the

guards dialog reflect that "there is something rotten in the state of Denmark".

It is full of corruption, deceit, passion, ruthlessness, and ambition that

Hamlet is not used to (Lidz, 71). His mind temporarily can not handle his

situation because, as I will mention later, his mother is at the center of it.

He has to try to find meaning, direction and a stable identity in the midst of

all the evil about him (Lidz, 73).

We clearly see that Hamlet is quite upset by his mother's quite hasty

marriage to is uncle, and this causes some deep seeded emotional problems for

Hamlet. I can not talk about Hamlet's emotional state without also going into

the fact that Hamlet already suspects the King of killing his father, before the

ghost tells him so (Leavenwoth, 34). First I will go elaborate on how Hamlet,

at certain times, was clearly not feigning insanity, but that insanity only

lasted for brief periods of time because of the emotional blows that Hamlet

undergoes.

I and many literary folk believe that Hamlet suffered from a Oedipus

complex. Freud described this as a desire for a young boy to kill his father

and become sexually involved with his mother. Now that Hamlet's father is

eliminated, he believes that he will now be the number one person receiving

affection from his mother, Queen Gertrude (Lidz, 48). This is the principal

reason of why even though Hamlet should have grown out of the Oedipal, it gets

reawakened (Lidz, 48). But, to Hamlet's great disappointment his mother has

remarried and he will not be the number one person to receive his mother's

affection and his superego is greatly damaged (Leavenworth, 95). He feels like

his mother has betrayed him in, by marrying, and to boot that she married with