Causes Of Insanity In Shakespeare's Hamlet

Throughout Shakespeare’s play: Hamlet, it is clear as a summer’s day, that Hamlet himself acts quite mad in some situations. Madness can come from many causes in a person’s life, Hamlet’s directly coming from his father’s, King Hamlet’s, death. He seems to go insane over whether or not his father was murdered, who did it, and how to get revenge upon this person. Whether or not he has actually gone insane is the big question. It is easy to assume that he is just playing a game, to gain attention to him and his plot against Claudius to confess over King Hamlet’s death, but without realizing it, Hamlet seems to actually go mad over this without realizing it. As soon as the play begins, Hamlet is genuinely distressed. Soon after, the audience

This passage takes an interesting turn. Gertrude tells Claudius that she thinks Hamlet is “mad as the sea and wind,” but earlier this day, Hamlet asked his mother to lie to Claudius and say he is mad, even though he is not. It begs the question if Gertrude thinks Hamlet is actually mad or if she is just protecting her son from Claudius. Throughout the play, the presence of King Hamlet’s ghost seems to go hand in hand with Hamlet’s insanity. Hamlet says, “The spirit that I have seen / May be the devil: and the devil hath power / To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps / Out of my weakness and my melancholy, / As he is very potent with such spirits, / Abuses me to damn me:” (Shakespeare, page 39). Here, Hamlet is thinking that the ghost may be the devil and is trying to convince him to kill Claudius. The vulnerability Hamlet has at this point in the play leads him to be vulnerable to the devil’s deception and influence. There are many opinions and stances on whether or not Hamlet is mad. There are many examples of both Hamlet’s madness and Hamlet being sane. In Shakespeare’s: Hamlet, the main character, Hamlet, has many reasons to go crazy. Though he may not actually be mad, there are many times when he acts completely