In life, people are easily affected by what is happening around them. The events that surround people can play with their emotions and how they act. From an enjoyable occasion or a terribly sad event, people act differently. In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the main character, Hamlet, is in complete melancholy, or is he? In this play, King Hamlet has died, and as a result, his son, Hamlet has entered a sorrowful state of mind. His parents are now worried about him and are concerned in how to free his sorrow. However, they seem to push things to only become worse. They later seem to believe that Hamlet has surpassed his sorrow and replaced it with complete madness. Now they decided to spy on him and send his friends from school, to figure out what is bothering him. He uses his intelligence to figure out why his friends have randomly appeared at his castle. No one seems to understand why Hamlet is mad other than the fact his father has died. However, the audience knows that Hamlet saw the ghost of his father. The ghost told Hamlet that he was poisoned by his brother, King Claudius, and he wants Hamlet to avenge his death. The play is all about revenge and Hamlet uses his portrayed madness to accomplish this goal.
Throughout the play, his parents try to make Hamlet happy and return to his normal state. He uses this against them, in ways of getting closer to finding out evidence against King Claudius. “The plays the thing”, turns into all the evidence he needs. This is a popular line from Hamlet and clearly demonstrates his brilliance. His cleverness proves that the King is guilty but in a discrete way. From this point forward, Hamlet just needs to find a chance to kill King Claudius. With this goal finally being accompli...
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...in reality he used it against King Claudius. Madness is the state of being mentally ill, it can cause one to act ridiculous and to be in sadness. Hamlet does an excellent job pretending to be in this state of mind and fakes out the whole audience and other characters. It takes a brilliant act to imitate madness and remain perfectly sane. Its intriguing to think that it can even be done, it takes a lot of courage, cleverness, and wit to accomplish this. Desperate times call for drastic measures, and to mislead people to think one is mad; is to put one’s life and reputation into jeopardy. It is a courageous act and not to many people have the nerve to try it. However, when a family is involved in a terrible situation, one should always do everything in their power to make things right. Even to the extents of risking one’s own life, to safe or honor their loved ones.
There is a great controversy amongst those who have read and studied Hamlet by Shakespeare. People argue whether or not Hamlet had gone mad or not. Many people believe that Hamlet had actually lost his mind, while others believe that it was all just an act. Since Hamlet is the most widely published book in the world, besides the Bible, this question has been asked and analyzed many times to little avail. The answer is open to whatever one wants to believe, which may intrigue some and bother others. Throughout the play, Hamlet’s personality changed after certain events. The play starts with him very upset over his father’s death. Then, after he saw his father’s ghost, he became full of vengeance. He seemed to have completely
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 his Hamlet a philosophically minded prince who delays taking action because his knowledge of his uncle’s crime is so uncertain.
Hamlet decides to portray an act of insanity, as part of his plan to seek revenge for his father's murder. As the play progresses, the reader may start to believe Hamlet’s “insane” act, but throughout the scenes, Hamlet shows that he knows right from wrong, good from bad, and his friends from his enemies. Hamlet shows that he still has power and control over his actions. As Elliot says “Hamlet madness is less than madness and more feigned”. Hamlet portrays a mad man, in order to be free from questioning, thus allowing him to have an easier path towards revenge.
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
One of the most analyzed plays in existence is the tragedy Hamlet, with its recurring question: "Is Hamlet’s 'antic disposition' feigned or real?" In truth, this question can only be answered by observing the thoughts of the main characters in relation to the cause of Hamlet real or feigned madness. In the tragedy Hamlet, each of the main characters explains Hamlets madness in their own unique way. To discover the cause behind the madness of Hamlet, each character used their own ambitions, emotions and interpretations of past events. Characters tried to explain Hamlet's "antic disposition" by means of association to thwarted ambition, heartbreaking anguish, and denied love. In the workings of their thoughts, the characters inadvertently reveal something about their own desires, emotions and experiences to the reader.
Hamlet, a Shakespearean character, constantly struggles in a battle with his mind. He leads a very trying life that becomes too much for him to handle. Hamlet experiences hardships so horrible and they affect him so greatly that he is unable escape his dispirited mood. In speaking what he feels, Hamlet reveals his many symptoms of depression, a psychological disorder. While others can move on with life, Hamlet remains in the past. People do not understand his behavior and some just assume he is insane. However, Hamlet is not insane. He only pretends to be mad. Because Hamlet never receives treatment for his disorder, it only gets worse and eventually contributes to his death.
In William Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet” there are many different events throughout the play that affect and shape the main character Hamlet. The biggest event being when Hamlet meets the ghost of his father, the king, who then proceeds to tell him that his uncle murdered him. This event will lead Hamlet to madness with sanity while plotting his revenge on his uncle which will ultimately end in his, his uncle and several other’s deaths at the end of the play.
By the time Hamlet was written, “madness” was already a popular element within revenge tragedies in the Elizabethan period. But, the role of madness in Hamlet was deeply ambiguous, which set it apart from the other revenge tragedies of its time. Whereas other revenge tragedy protagonists were the complete opposite and just simply insane. Hamlet fiddles with the idea of being insane, which is where it all began. Hamlet states, “How strange or odd so'er I bear myself, / As I perchance hereafter shall think meet/
Hamlet does not take the opportunity to slay Claudius as he prays because he believes it will save his soul. His contemplative nature takes over regarding the ghost’s revelation and he decides to devise a play to pique Claudius’ conscience and make sure he is really guilty.
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:
One single moment or event during the course of an individual’s life can effectively alter their priorities and transform their identity drastically. In The play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, Shakespeare introduces the readers to the protagonist Hamlet who is draped in anger and emotions and has a new-found mission in life. Initially, Hamlet is portrayed as an individual in mourning over his father's death and his mother's haste in remarrying to her brother-in-law and Hamlet's uncle, Claudius. However, Hamlet’s character and personality were drastically altered after meeting the Ghost and discovering the true nature of his Father’s death. Hamlet is now a man with a lust for revenge and a willingness to do anything that will enable him to accomplish this goal. When burdened with the task of killing Claudius, Hamlet chooses to sacrifice all he holds dear by transforming his identity in a noble effort to avenge his father’s death.
The quickest take over of madness is exhibited in Hamlet’s love interest, Ophelia. The most important example of madness is shown in Hamlet after his meeting with the Ghost and his plot for revenge upon his uncle. The most unexpected example of madness is in Laertes who in a fit of rage loses all gentleman like qualities and almost upsets the kingdom. All of these characters add up to the idea that to lose someone a person cares about dearly, ultimately ends in losing one’s composure and going mad. If we take away anything from Shakespeare’s play, it should be that each of us should think over our decisions prior to making them to insure we don’t have the same fate as the characters stated
Hamlet’s plan of faking insanity to avenge his father’s death eventually backfires and he winds up hurting those closest to him. What began as feigned madness slowly becomes reality. In the beginning of the play, Hamlet could be characterized as a respectful, well-mannered son who is mourning the death of his father and shows signs of depression. In the end of the play, Hamlet turns into an irrational, unforgiving maniac who is unaware of the complete and utter chaos that he inflicts on himself and everyone he loves. Instead of controlling his “antic disposition”, Hamlet's antic disposition controls him, resulting in tragedy and death.
Hamlet’s mourning about the death of his father and the remarriage of his mother drives him to madness. This is the main characters inner tragedy that Shakespeare expresses in the play. First he considers suicide but the ghost of King Hamlet sends him on a different path, directing him to revenge his death. Shakespeare uses Hamlet to articulate his thoughts about life, death and revenge. Being a moral character he must decide if revenge is the right thing to do. Shakespeare relays many scenarios of reasoning to the audience about mankind His hero sets the wrongs on mankind right again.
The tragedy of Hamlet by William Shakespeare is about Hamlet going insane and reveals his madness through his actions and dialogue. Hamlet remains one of the most discussed literary characters of all time. This is most likely due to the complex nature of Hamlet as a character. In one scene, Hamlet appears happy, and then he is angry in another and melancholy in the next. Hamlet’s madness is a result of his father’s death which was supposedly by the hands of his uncle, Claudius. He has also discovered that this same uncle is marrying his mom. It is expected that Hamlet would be suffering from some emotional issues as result of these catastrophes. Shakespeare uses vivid language, metaphors, and imagery to highlight how Hamlet’s madness influences several important aspects of his life including his relationships and the way he presents himself.