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Shakespeare’s obsession with madness
Shakespeare’s obsession with madness
Shakespeare’s obsession with madness
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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.
According to the article “9 Signs You Might Be Going Insane” by Mamapedia, Hamlet falls into several categories of mental illness ( Mamapedia). One of the mental ilness's that show Hamlet is insane schizophrenia. Hamlet can be considered to be schizophrenic due to his paranoia that everyone is on claudious's side and his his hallucination of his father's ghost in his mother's chambers as well as his delusion for revenge of his father's murder. In act 3, scene 4 Hamlet talks to his father's ghost in front of his mother but the ghost is completely imaginary to his mother Gertrude and she even calls him mad because hamlet seem to be talking to some kind of a hallucination (3, 4, 105-7).Therefore, this supports the argument that Hamlet is actually insane in Shakespeare's play Hamlet.
Moreover, another mental illness that Hamlet seems to suffer from that emphazises the idea that Hamlet is insane is that he seems to have a bipolar disorder. The reason Ha...
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...tal murder of polonious and his decision to have his friends Rozencrantz and Guildenstern murdered for conspiring against him also contributed to Hamlet's mental instability. Moreover, the death of his beloved Ophelia and his mother Gertrude lead to Hamlet's decision to commit suicide.. Each of this events had some pshychological impact on Hamlet and ultimately contributed to Hamlet's insanity and his death. Therefore, even thought Hamlet had not been insane at the beginning of the play he gradually became insane due to the dramatic events that occurred to him and how he dealth with them.
Works Cited
Shakespeare, William. “Hamlet.” Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. 9th ed. Edgar V. Roberts. Pearson Education, 2009. 1318-1421. print.
Mamapedia staff. “9 Signs You Might Be Going Insane.” Mamapedia Voices 21 Oct. 2009. Mamapedia.web. 10 Apr. 2014.
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.
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 is going on around him. Most importantly, Hamlet does not think like that of a person who is mad.
Shakespeare's tragic hero, Hamlet, and his sanity can arguably be discussed. Many portions of the play supports his loss of control in his actions, while other parts uphold his ability of dramatic art. The issue can be discussed both ways and altogether provide significant support to either theory. There are indications from Hamlet throughout the play of his mind's well being.
I’m not saying that Hamlet was faking the whole thing. I mean, having your dad die is bad, but to have your mom marry your uncle. Also to see the ghost of your dead dad. That might make you a bit crazy, but not as crazy as everyone thought Hamlet was. If it wasn’t for Hamlet’s insanity, the King would have known that something was wrong with Hamlet, and might have him killed. If Hamlet didn’t act to make the king believe that he was insane, then the King would have seen it and would figure that Hamlet knew the truth.
Hamlet could be classified as schizophrenic based solely off cause. The triggers mentioned, Gertrude and Claudius wanting him to repress his mourning and the ghost, confuse Hamlet. One major cause of schizophrenia is dissonance between thoughts, actions, and surroundings. Hamlet experiences dissonance between his surroundings and his thoughts. He wants to mourn for his father’s death but Claudius and Gertrude try to stop him due to their own self interest for the thrown. Claudius asks Hamlet to stop mourning “T’is unmanly grief/It shows a will most incorrect in heaven” (1.2 94-95). This confliction helps to trigger not only his revenge plot but also Hamlet’s insanity, or schizophrenia. He experiences other major dissonance that are a result of his revenge plot, but this is the point where his schizophrenia
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.
Hamlet throughout the play seems insane but in reality it is only an act to achieve his goal of killing his father's murderer. Hamlet chooses to go mad so he has an advantage over his opponent and since he is the Prince of Denmark certain behavior is unacceptable, so by faking madness he is able to get away with inappropriate sayings and actions. We can see this when he talks to Claudius, Polonius, Ophelia and his mother. When Hamlet talks to Horatio in the first act he says how he is going to "feign madness" and that:
But based on the many instances throughout the play show it was more than that. He had many stressful events happen to him in life, like his father’s death or his mother moving on quickly to his uncle right after. He is still a young man, so that is a lot of thing to process through. Most young men worry about a career and women but he has to deal with his father’s death and then founding out on top of that, that the killer was his uncle. Also the inability to trust no one with anything, being alone in a tough time is very hard. The topic of suicide comes up often and it is related to being alone. He gets very paranoid and it just add fuel to the fire. So throughout the play Hamlet thinks he is acting about his insanity but in truth he was
In the beginning of the novel that Hamlet’s spirits aren’t all there, and his soul is disturbed, by the death of his father. He seems to be looking for answers and meaning to explain the unexplainable death of his father and his mother’s abrupt marriage to his uncle, this is where I believe his insanity started. Given that this happened to anyone normal person, they’re mind would be a mess and bitterness and anger would play a huge part in their thoughts. So, yes in a way, I do believe that Hamlet was diseased with temporary insanity.
Throughout the play, Hamlet, written by William Shakespeare, the unclear representation of the protagonist’s actions is present. The protagonist, Hamlet, conducts the idea that he is turning mad. Although, there are many indications which support that this so-called “madness” is part of an act that Hamlet portrays. The other characters within the play try to understand the reasoning behind Hamlet’s madness, but cannot figure out the truth behind it. The main cause of Hamlet’s madness is the realization of his father’s death and the numerous influences his father’s death has on his life. Hamlet can control his actions of madness and specifically acts differently around certain characters. The characters who are more concerned
In the play Hamlet written by William Shakespeare the reader gets to see how Hamlet's life pertains to his insanity. “In life of Hamlet as represented by Shakespeare we have a full history of a case of insanity, of a peculiar kind” (Kellogg). “It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane” notes Philip K. Dick. Even though Hamlet is aware in the play there is a side to Hamlet that takes control of him. Though Hamlet often demonstrates awareness; his mind ultimately succumbs to insanity, which brings about his tragic end.
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.
In the play Hamlet, the author, Shakespeare portrays madness or insanity through most of its characters. What is madness, it is a state of mind in which doesn’t let ones ideas flow normally or think with a clear mind. In this case it is evident that there is something wrong with almost all the main characters. All the characters in the play in some form or fashion display madness either through thoughts, actions or words.
All of these things amass a great deal of stress on Hamlet. Even if Hamlet is truly only pretending to be mad after his first encounter with the ghost he is most truly insane by the end of the play. The death of his father and loss of contact with his lover begin driving him to insanity. We can say with some certainty that the ghost is real on its visit to Hamlet because others witness it, but after the death of Polonius, Hamlet is its only witness. By this point Hamlet must surely be insane. He has been brooding for so l...