Indecision of Hamlet's Madness Being Real or Feigned in Shakespeare's Hamlet
"That unmatched form and feature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy. Oh woe is me
T'have seen what I have seen, see what I see."
(Act III, Scene 1, lines 168-170)
Ophelia begins to mentally collapse at the beginning of Act III after Hamlet says that he never loved her. This part of William Shakespeare's "Hamlet," when Ophelia goes insane, is one of the most well known scenes. However, those who haven't read the play in its entirety won't necessarily know that one of the most prominent, under-lying themes throughout the play is that of madness. Although madness in each infected Shakespeare character is caused by different circumstances, the fact that they have gone mad greatly affects the outcome of this tragedy.
Hamlet's madness could easily be doubted. When Hamlet visited Ophelia before Act II, Scene I, his madness was actually that of love. He burst into her room with "knees knocking each other" and with a "look so piteous in purport as if he had been loosed out of hell to speak of horrors." According to Ophelia, she isn't positive his madness was out of love, but she admits, "...truly I do fear it." Hamlet later plays the part of the lunatic, acting contemptuous, witty, and sarcastic when he meets Polonius in the lobby in Act II, Scene II. Hamlet is completely incapable of organized speech and of understanding the most forthright questions. This type of madness is entirely unlike that which he displayed when he visited Ophelia. Later again, when he meets up with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Hamlet switches from the deranged act to the depressed one. He tells them of his weariness and misery, but says that he doesn't understand the cause of it. These three different types of madness within only a couple of hours and the impression that Hamlet is unable to uphold a performance of consistent madness is very odd. Perhaps he was doing this on purpose, but when he acts mad and gets his life deeply involved in acting mad, where is the line drawn that Hamlet is acting, or that he is acting so well that he begins to adapt to the madness and he is actually mad?
Queen Gertrude suspected Hamlet went mad because of 'his father's death and [his mother's] o'verhasty marriage' to Claudius.
that they had seen a ghost during the night watch. Hamlet was shocked at the
Hamlet: Is He Insane? & nbsp; & nbsp ; The term insanity means a mental disorder, whether it is temporary or permanent. permanent, that is used to describe a person when they don't know the difference. between right or wrong. They don't consider the nature of their actions due to the mental defect of the person.
... ideas that Hamlet is mad and that Hamlet is not mad. Readers and critics can agree that Hamlet is not a "man of action," but is instead a "man of reflection"-reflection that is concentrated on both himself and the world (Schucking 31).I believe it is Shakespeare's anger towards corruption and religion that makes Hamlet to fall into madness. “Finding a character in real life of a person endowed with so delicate as to border on weakness with sensibility too exquisite to allow of determined action “(Sylvia 13).While it’s difficult to point out the exact cause in Hamlet's life that lead to his insanity, one thing is for certain; he went mad, and the madness did to him what it does to everything that holds madness; it destroys whatever it touches. Insanity in The tragedy of Prince Hamlet over powered sanity which concludes that the entire play revolves around insanity
In Hamlet, he seems to be mad, but there is a question that everyone asks when reading or watching this play “was it, or was it not true that Hamlet was faking his insanity, really suffering, or maybe even both.” First, this is what insanity is: insanity is acting crazy, but not knowing that they’re acting crazy. Also, it’s going through a lot of stress at the same time causing you to act stranger then a normal person. Hamlet was not totally insane. It doesn’t fit.
Hamlet has had several things in his life trigger his madness. Hamlet feigns madness in order to discover the truth behind his father’s death. Upon Hamlets arrival home from Denmark he learns of his father’s death and his mother’s remarriage to Claudius, the late Kings brother. All of these things are enough to make a person mad. Later on he meets with the ghost of his father and learns that his father was murdered by his own brother, in Claudius’s attempt to take the throne and become the new King of Denmark. All of this news overwhelms ...
Hamlet is without a doubt one of the most complex pieces to interpret for many different scholars and people. The question of the truth behind his madness has become a debate among anyone who lays eyes on the play. In fact, madness becomes a large role within the play that will cause many situations as well as effect them. I believe Hamlet unintentionally went mad attempting to act as a mad man.
Is Hamlet truly insane? While the play is not extremely clear on the matter and often contradicts itself, many of Hamlet’s wild ramblings and words of nonsense seem to be not the true words of a madman. Hamlet says himself that he is merely “putting on an antic disposition” (Act 1, Scene 5, Line 181). He admits very early on in the play that his insanity will be nothing more than a ruse to fool those around him. This is further proven by the fact that when he is around Horatio he shows no signs of mental illness. He speaks calmly and everything he says makes sense.
Hamlet throughout the play seems insane but in reality it is only an act to achieve his goal of killing his father's murderer. Hamlet chooses to go mad so he has an advantage over his opponent and since he is the Prince of Denmark certain behavior is unacceptable, so by faking madness he is able to get away with inappropriate sayings and actions. We can see this when he talks to Claudius, Polonius, Ophelia and his mother. When Hamlet talks to Horatio in the first act he says how he is going to "feign madness" and that:
The question of Hamlet’s insanity is a question raised by many people, is Hamlet a great actor, or has he lost complete sense of what’s real? There is no right answer, there is no wrong answer, many readers have different perceptions on what really was going through Hamlet’s head. My perception is that hamlet comes full circle with his insanity, and at points lets it get the best of him, and brings him down to a extremely low point.
Throughout the Shakespearian play, Hamlet, the main character is given the overwhelming responsibility of avenging his father’s "foul and most unnatural murder" (I.iv.36). Such a burden can slowly drive a man off the deep end psychologically. Because of this, Hamlet’s disposition is extremely inconsistent and erratic throughout the play. At times he shows signs of uncontrollable insanity. Whenever he interacts with the characters he is wild, crazy, and plays a fool. At other times, he exemplifies intelligence and method in his madness. In instances when he is alone or with Horatio, he is civilized and sane. Hamlet goes through different stages of insanity throughout the story, but his neurotic and skeptical personality amplifies his persona of seeming insane to the other characters. Hamlet comes up with the idea to fake madness in the beginning of the play in order to confuse his enemies. However, for Hamlet to fulfill his duty of getting revenge, he must be totally sane. Hamlet’s intellectual brilliance make it seem too impossible for him to actually be mad, for to be insane means that one is irrational and without any sense. When one is irrational, one is not governed by or according to reason. So, Hamlet is only acting mad in order to plan his revenge on Claudius.
In Lewis Carol’s, Alice in Wonderland, he tells of the meeting between two of his characters, Alice, and the Mad Hatter. Carol writes about the struggles the young girl Alice has with him due to the fact that he appears to be entirely crazy, though the question stands if there is some method to his madness. Playwright and actor, William Shakespeare, uses this controversial connection between real madness and loss in his play Hamlet, portrayed in his characters Hamlet, and his crazed actions towards his loved ones, in Ophelia and her reaction to the death of her father, and lastly, in his character Laertes and his quick, rash reaction to act upon his desire for revenge.
Once Polonius informs Ophelia, his daughter, of Hamlet’s madness, Polonius directly goes to King Claudius and discloses that he has the reason for Hamlet 's madness. Gertrude answers, "I doubt it no other but the main,/ His father 's death and our o 'erhasty marriage" (Shakespeare 2.2 56-57). As Hamlet 's mother, Hamlet 's father 's wife, and Hamlet 's father 's brother 's wife, Gertrude is blind to all other reason that is not Hamlets father’s death and her quick remarriage. However, Polonius believes differently and tells Claudius how Ophelia obeyed his advice to "lock herself from his resort,/ Admit no messengers, receive no tokens...into the madness wherein now [Hamlet] raves" (Shakespeare 2.2. 142-149). Polonius presumes that Hamlet 's disillusioned love for Ophelia causes his madness. With not one person knowing Hamlet’s true inspiration, everybody’s opinion on his madness is biased. Gertrude bases her reason on Hamlet 's experience over his father 's death and her fault in her quick marriage with her son 's uncle. On the other hand, Polonius bases his reason on his knowledge of and interference in the relationship between his daughter and Hamlet. At first glance, Hamlet 's madness is regarded as innocent and thought to be from the problems that are already present. Nonetheless, with the assassination of Polonius by Hamlet, his madness interprets a different meaning. When Gertrude tells Claudius of this,
Ophelia’s madness is because of what she encounters throughout the play by everyone around her. Her character is often looked past, people really don’t give her a second thought, and her emotions and wellbeing are almost entirely forgotten about. When her father and brother are telling her to stay away from Hamlet, she tries to speak up and tell them that she knows that Hamlet truly loves her. She tells them her feelings, but they say no, she is not to speak to Hamlet again and must obey. They didn’t take a second to try and look things over from her perspective.
Ophelia loves Hamlet; her emotions drive her to perform her actions. Some would say that Ophelia’s emotions could have actually been what ended her young
The madness of each individual is not realistic, but the idea that death, grievance, and revenge can drive someone to do things that seem to be mad or make them do things out of their nature. Overall, we see that the theme of madness has a significant impact on the conflicts and overall development of the play as well as the characters themselves and is successfully conveyed. Shakespeare developed a theme that tied the many important emotions and ideas together to make the play what it is. He used Ophelia’s grief and love, Hamlet’s wit and ruminative nature to convey a theme that could be related to more than the one character, and tie all of the conflicts and complications down to one cause.