Madness and Insanity in Shakespeare's Hamlet - A Sane Man

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Hamlet: A Sane Man

Hamlet was indeed a very sane man. He was only feigning madness to further

his own plans for revenge. His words were so cleverly constructed that others

will perceive him as mad. It is this consistent cleverness that is the ultimate

evidence of his complete sanity. Can a mad person be so clever? No, a mad person

cannot. Hamlet is sane and brilliant.

After Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus see the ghost, Hamlet tells Horatio

that he is going to "feign madness". If Horatio is to notice Hamlet acting

strange it is because he is putting on an act. "How strange or odd some'er I

bear myself/(As I perchance hereafter shall think meet/To put an antic

disposition on)/That you, at such times seeing, never shall,/With arms

encumbered thus, or this headshake ,/Or by pronouncing of some doutful

phrase,/As "Well,well,we know," or "We could an if we/would,"/Or "If we list to

speak," or "There be an if they/might,"/Or such ambiguous giving-out, to

note/That you know of me-this do swear,/(I,v,190-201).Hamlet states that from

this point forward I may act weird but to ignore my acts of madness for they are

just that, acts, and are in no way a sign of true madness. Only a sane and

rational person could devise such a plan as to act insane to convince others

that he is insane when he actually has complete control over his psyche.

Hamlet only acts mad when he is in the presence of certain characters.

When he is around Polonius, Claudius, Gertrude, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, and

Guildenstern he acts completely irrational. When Hamlet is around Horatio,

Bernardo, Fransico, the players, and the gravediggers Hamlet acts completely

sane.

When Hamlet and Polonius meet in II,ii Hamlet calls Polonius a

fishmonger and makes strange conversation with him. In IV,iii Hamlet refuses to

tell Claudius were he has hidden the body of Polonius and goes on about how

Polonius is at supper. When Hamlet encounters Gertrude in her closet, an unusual

place, in III,iv. He yells at his own mother. In II,i Hamlet enters Ophelia's

closet, a highly unusual act, he is dressed badly, and acts very strange towards

her. Claudius and Polonius set up a clandestine meeting between Hamlet and

Ophelia in III,i. Ophelia then tries to return some gifts that Hamlet gave to

her and Hamlet claims that he did not give her any gifts and that he never loved

her at all. During the play in III,ii Hamlet sexually harasses Ophelia in front

of the entire audience of the play. In IV,ii Hamlet refuses to tell Rosencratz

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