How Shakespeare Portrays Madness in Hamlet
Many questions have been raised about Hamlets madness. Whether it was
an act, or that his father’s death and his ghost genuinely drove him
to the brink of madness. Along side with Hamlet, further on in the
play Polonius’s death brought Ophelia and the audiences to question
her own sanity as well. Although Hamlets madness and Ophelia’s are
caused by the same thing, the death of their father, they both have
very different consequences to their new found personality change.
Hamlets madness itself was represented as an act, from an audience’s
point of view we know his anti disposition is an act, but this piece
of dramatic irony brings a lot of despair for the rest of the
characters.
I’m going explore how Shakespeare portrays madness in the play ,
looking in depth to causes, consequences, actions, language,
similarities, and differences or Ophelia’s and hamlets madness.
The death of King Hamlet left a lot of considerable damage on Hamlet.
In act one scene two as the King and Queen celebrate their wedding,
and Hamlet is still mourning his father’s death. “How is it that the
clouds still hang on you?”
“Not so my lord, I am too much in the sun” It’s his own strong belief
that the Queen did not mourn enough for her husband, and her ‘oh hasty
marriage’ was brought on too quick. This conjures negative emotions in
Hamlet, for which uses to build a barrier between them. The distant
relationship that Hamlet seems to have with the King and Queen makes
it easier for them to pin point his madness on what they think the
roots are.
Hamlets madness is without a doubt not genuine in the beginning ...
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...throne.
Hamlet was the true cause of Ophelia’s madness, without his
selfishness his true love wouldn’t be enduring such agony. She too
loved her father and surely Hamlet of all people knows what it is like
to have a loved ones life taken away from them through cold hearted
murder. I think there are a lot of negative points about both
Ophelia’s and hamlets madness, but hamlets was more of an act to prove
his disapproval of Claudius’s air to the throne . If Hamlet was truly
scared of committing suicide and the consequences that are withheld
for it in the after life, Should Hamlet not also worries about the
punishment on numerous cold blooded murders? Also Laertes’s madness is
driven by Hamlets careless actions; he subconsciously kills a whole
family when all he wanted to do himself was seek revenge for King
Hamlet.