Examples Of Mental Illness In Hamlet

Mental Illnesses Impact Everything Mental illnesses and craziness are not always a bad thing, it is what mental illnesses and craziness can cause the people to do. Hamlet by William Shakespeare provides the readers with many different types of mental illness and madness. This play was written in the early 1600’s and times have changed a lot since then, but the examples of mental illnesses and craziness is still an issue in todays world. A majority of characters in this play have kind of mental illness and/or are crazy, insane, or mad. In William Shakespeare 's play Hamlet, mental illness and craziness and madness play an important role of the development of the characters and the story.

Ophelia is one character in this play that could be described as ‘crazy’ because of all of the men

The first sign of Claudius’s madness is in the beginning of the play, when we find out that Claudius murdered his own brother.Claudius is the root cause of many problems in this play. In the beginning of the play the ghost of Hamlet reveals that Claudius is the one that murdered him. The ghost of Hamlet states to his son, “But know thou noble youth, the serpent that did sting thy father’s life now wears his crown.” (I. v. 45-47.) Marriages are supposed to be meaningful and with the person that you love, but in Claudius’s and Gertrude’s case it seems that Claudius is only marrying Gertrude so he can have the title of the king, perhaps that is why he married Gertrude after two months of his brother’s death. Claudius’s craziness is also portrayed when he encourages Laertes to get revenge against Hamlet and kill him. At this point in the play Hamlet is Claudius’s step son, and Claudius seems just fine with someone murdering his own son. In most situations, a normal step father would most likely not want his stepson to be murdered. Claudius’s craziness is shown in the decisions that he makes throughout the