Hamlet's Madness in William Shakespeare's Hamlet

Hamlet's Madness in William Shakespeare's Hamlet

At any given moment during the play, the most accurate assessment of

Hamlet's state of mind probably lies somewhere between sanity and

insanity. Hamlet certainly displays a high degree of mania and

instability throughout much of the play, but his "madness" is perhaps

too purposeful and pointed for us to conclude that he actually loses

his mind. His language is erratic and wild, but beneath his

mad-sounding words often lie acute observations that show the sane

mind working bitterly beneath the surface. Most likely, Hamlet's

decision to feign madness is a sane one, taken to confuse his enemies

and hide his intentions. On the other hand, Hamlet finds himself in a

unique and traumatic situation, one which calls into question the

basic truths and ideals of his life. He can no longer believe in

religion, which has failed his father and doomed him to life amid

miserable experience. He can no longer trust society, which is full of

hypocrisy and violence, or love, which has been poisoned by his

mother's betrayal of his father's memory. And, finally, he cannot turn

to philosophy, which cannot explain ghosts or answer his moral

questions and lead him to action. With this much discord in his mind,

and already under the extraordinary pressure of grief from his

father's death, his mother's marriage, and the responsibility

bequeathed to him by the ghost, Hamlet is understandably distraught.

He may not be mad, but he likely is close to the edge of sanity during

many of the most intense moments in the play, such as during the

performance of the play-within-a-play (III.ii), his confrontation with

Oph...

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...lf or resolve to kill Claudius. Here, he turns to a

logical philosophical inquiry and finds it equally frustrating.

Explaining his love for Ophelia/ relationships with female characters.

Misogyny - Shattered by his mother's repugnant decision to marry

Claudius so soon after her husband's death, Hamlet becomes extremely

cynical, even neurotic, about women in general, showing a particular

obsession with what he perceives to be a connection between female

sexuality and moral corruption. This motif of misogyny, or hatred of

women, occurs only sporadically throughout the play, but it is an

important inhibiting factor in Hamlet's relationships with Ophelia and

Gertrude. He urges Ophelia to go to a nunnery rather than experience

the corruption of sexuality and exclaims of Gertrude, "Frailty, thy

name is woman" (I.ii.146).