Hamlets Crazy!

Hamlet’s Crazy!

The idea of madness portrayed by Hamlet and Ophelia is a perfect example of the changes that occur after certain traumatic situations. Hamlet’s actions throughout the play are a direct reaction towards the trauma earlier in the play. Ophelia and her ending in life is the ultimate price of madness. Both Hamlet and Ophelia were not the only two people in this play that had gone mad. In the end, the whole cast had gone mad.

Hamlet’s madness played a bigger role in the play than Hamlet himself. In the very beginning, when Hamlet first conversed with his dead father’s ghost, Hamlet and his sanity had changed. Hamlet had gone insane after seeing a ghost. This was not such a wrong thing. In one scene, Hamlet said nothing but a grunt to Ophelia, who was left dumbfounded in fright. Ophelia may of sensed Hamlet’s madness at this point. Perhaps it had rubbed off on her. In a speech directed towards Polonius, Hamlet, with total disregard of Polonius and his feeling’s, repeatedly offended him. Polonius was in deed testing him at this time. Claudius had witnessed this and said there was method in his madness-- I agree. After all of this it is fairly obvious that Hamlet’s madness had written the play.

If Hamlet were stable with his Father’s death, and his Mother’s re-marriage, the plot would be far less great and the play would have ended in the first scene. The whole idea of Hamlet and his madness thickened the plot and furthered the play. Would Polonious have died without Hamlet’s madness? Or would Ophelia drown herself without Hamlet and his ways? Not likely. Hamlet was not the only one who had gone mad with rage; Laertes too had gone mad. Near the end of the play, after his father had been slain and his sister drown, Laertes too had caught the “Hamlet Madness Disease.” Laertes might have had an immature jealousy towards Hamlet, but I disagree. Strangely, Hamlet seemed to act more sane when Laertes began to lash out at Hamlet while attending his dead sister’s funeral. From that point on Hamlet seemed more calm and together. He apologized to Laertes for killing his father, and blamed it on his madness. He then referred to him as a brother. These are not the actions of a mad man, but of a man with regret and solitude.