Shakespeare on Revenge and Madness Shakespeare, the world’s most renowned writer created Hamlet long before modern theories of psychological health. Hamlet exemplifies many symptoms of modern mental instability. Having conquered the barrier of time Shakespeare created a lasting classic depicting the fatalities of revenge and their connection with mental instability. Shakespeare connects the plagues of revenge with consequences, specifically with schizophrenia, to prove the theme that revenge is fatal and should not be pursued. The play begins with the introduction of King Hamlet’s death. Here the reader sees Prince Hamlet mourning his father’s death while his uncle, King Claudius, and mother, Queen Gertrude, try to persuade him to forget
Hamlet could be classified as schizophrenic based solely off cause. The triggers mentioned, Gertrude and Claudius wanting him to repress his mourning and the ghost, confuse Hamlet. One major cause of schizophrenia is dissonance between thoughts, actions, and surroundings. Hamlet experiences dissonance between his surroundings and his thoughts. He wants to mourn for his father’s death but Claudius and Gertrude try to stop him due to their own self interest for the thrown. Claudius asks Hamlet to stop mourning “T’is unmanly grief/It shows a will most incorrect in heaven” (1.2 94-95). This confliction helps to trigger not only his revenge plot but also Hamlet’s insanity, or schizophrenia. He experiences other major dissonance that are a result of his revenge plot, but this is the point where his schizophrenia
Throughout the play Hamlet is seen contemplating whether or not to take action. Hamlet sees Claudius praying and contemplates whether “Now might [he (Hamlet)] do it pat, now a is a-praying” (3.3 73). Hamlet is contemplating whether or not to commit the action and kill Claudius. During his short soliloquy here, the reader finds Hamlet with an urge to commit the murder but physically not being able to. In this instance he blames the time, he claims that “now a is a-praying/...so a goes to heaven” (3.3 74-74). Hamlet thinks that if he kills Claudius while he is praying, that Claudius will go to heaven. This dissonance is another cause and symptom of his schizophrenia. Again, Shakespeare is trying to illustrate Hamlet’s symptoms so that the reader may be aware of Hamlet’s situation and mental state. More importantly, Shakespeare wants the reader to find Hamlet insane and schizophrenic because it aids in the portrayal of his
Mental illness can be a virus. It attaches to those with wild thoughts, actions, and comprehensions of a world known and unknown. It hits the soul, pulling at once a kind being into anxiety, pain and loss. In Shakespeare's play Hamlet, his main character, Hamlet, comes down with the illness. It enters him through actions by friends, enemies, and even his own family. The hardest thing to understand is whether Hamlet's insanity is completely real, or an act put on to win revenge. However, no matter what the reality of his psychotic mind is, the real question is what brought this whole thing on. In 1601 when Shakespeares Hamlet was written, Hamlet would be diagnosed with suffering from melancholy, but with today's high technology and knowledge he would of been diagnosed with bipolar I disorder. In Shakespeare’s time there was no concept of depressive illnesses, although melancholy was well known during his time.
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.
In the beginning of the play, Hamlet's father comes to him as a ghost from the grave. He tells Hamlet of his uncle's betrayal of him and tells Hamlet that he must kill Claudius to set things right. Through this event, Hamlet...
Shakespeare 's play "Hamlet" is about a complex protagonist, Hamlet, who faces adversity and is destined to murder the individual who killed his father. Hamlet is a character who although his actions and emotions may be one of an insane person, in the beginning of the book it is clear that Hamlet decides to fake madness in order for his plan to succeed in killing Claudius. Hamlet is sane because throughout the play he only acts crazy in front of certain people, to others he acts properly and displays proper prince like behavior who is able to cope with them without sounding crazy, and even after everything that has been going on in his life he is able to take revenge by killing his
Hamlet is arguably the most famous play written by the highly renowned English playwright, William Shakespeare--a man known in much of the western world as the father of english literature. Part of the reason for this title is for Shakespeare’s ability to take a character, and through a basic plot, transform said character into becoming something that many scholars have debated over for years. Hamlet in this play is this character; a character whose mental instability or sheer lack of perception has lead to countless debate and argument over the actual explanation for the characters behavior. Schizophrenia can be defined as a lasting mental disorder that forms a fundamental impediment in thought and emotion (as well as behaviour). This disorder can then lead to a lack of judgment in perception, and unusual actions and feelings, all in addition to an overall withdrawal from reality and a devolution of personal relationships to delusional perceptions of oneself and his surroundings--in all, schizophrenia is a mental disorder involving the breaking down of the mind and one’s grip on reality (National Library of Medicine). With the above definition, it may at first seem rash to criticize Hamlet and declare that he has Schizophrenia; however, once it is considered the varying degrees in which Schizophrenia can manifest itself, it no longer becomes such a farfetched thought. It must be contended then, that Hamlet is neither insane nor lazy, but merely a man who suffers from Schizophrenic-hallucinations; hallucinations that spiral up the plot into one focused primarily on Hamlet’s search for truth.
The play begins with the changing of the guards on a platform of the castle of Elsinore in Denmark. Recently the spectral likeness of dead King Hamlet has appeared to the guards. Horatio and Marcellus leave the barricades of Elsinore intending to enlist the aid of Hamlet, who is home from school, dejected by the “o’erhasty marriage” of his mother to his uncle less than two months after the funeral of Hamlet’s father (Gordon, 128). There is a post-coronation social gathering of the court, where Claudius pays tribute to the memory of his deceased brother, the former king, and then, along with Queen Gertrude. Dispatching Cornelius and Voltemand to Norway to settle the Fortinbras affair, addressing Polonius and Laertes on the subject of the latter’s return to sc...
In retrospect, the concept of revenge in “Hamlet” is quite the eye-opener for those in the dark of what revenge can and will do to one's self and those around him. It is plain to see the agonizing and degenerate condition that it brings upon the body and soul. Moreover, can the disease revenge inflicts rest easily upon the mind? I think not. By no effort can a man avoid the pain and suffering associated with engaging in a personal vendetta. For a man is a flawed being, without any form of perfection within him, save the perfect condition of imperfection present in all mankind. May all the world forget its vengeful spirit as to avoid the cataclysm of such distasteful undoing.
One of the most popular characters in Shakespearean literature, Hamlet endures difficult situations within the castle he lives in. The fatal death of his father, and urge for revenge leads Hamlet into making unreasonable decisions. In William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, Hamlet’s sanity diminishes as the story progresses, impacting the people around him as well as the timing and outcome of his revenge against Claudius.
Once Hamlet stumbles upon his uncle praying he says: “Now might I do it pat now a is praying. / And now I’ll do’t, / and so a goes to heaven, / And so I am revenged. That would be scanned. / A villain kills my father, and for that / I, his sole son, do this same villain send / to heaven” (3.4.73-77). Hamlet had the perfect opportunity to commit regicide here yet instead of going to Claudius and killing him Hamlet stays back and once again begins to ponder the possibilities of whether or not this is really a good time to do it. Hamlet’s religious beliefs surely play a strong role here because he starts to question what will happen if he kills his uncle while he is praying. Hamlet does, as the quote reveals come to the conclusion that if he were to kill his uncle now he would go to heaven, and not hell where the ghost claimed to have to return to “My hour is almost come. / When I sulph’rous and tormenting flames / Must render up myself” (1.5.4-6). Hamlet did prove that the ghost was his father so knowing that his father is suffering because of his uncle hamlet has no desire to kill Claudius while he is in a position to go to heaven. Normally religious arguments are based on pure speculation however this is not the case for Hamlet; because he has seen the spirit of his late father who did confess to Hamlet that there was in fact a hell to go to because he has to
Hamlet, a young prince preparing to become King of Denmark, cannot understand or cope with the catastrophes in his life. After his father dies, Hamlet is filled with confusion. However, when his father's ghost appears, the ghost explains that his brother, Hamlet's Uncle Claudius, murdered him. In awe of the supposed truth, Hamlet decides he must seek revenge and kill his uncle. This becomes his goal and sole purpose in life. However, it is more awkward for Hamlet because his uncle has now become his stepfather. He is in shock by his mother's hurried remarriage and is very confused and hurt by these circumstances. Along with these familial dysfunctions, Hamlet's love life is diminishing. It is an "emotional overload" for Hamlet (Fallon 40). The encounter with the ghost also understandably causes Hamlet great distress. From then on, his behavior is extremely out of context (Fallon 39). In Hamlet's first scene of the play, he does not like his mother's remarriage and even mentions his loss of interest in l...
William Shakespeare’s Hamlet revolves around Hamlet’s quest to avenge his father’s murder. Claudius’ first speech as King at the beginning of Scene 2, Act 1 introduces the themes of hierarchy, incest and appearance versus reality and plays the crucial role of revealing Claudius’ character as part of the exposition. The audience is left skeptical after Horatio’s questioning of King Hamlet’s ghost in the first scene of the play. By placing Claudius’ pompous speech immediately after the frightening appearance of Hamlet’s ghost, Shakespeare contrasts the mournful atmosphere in Denmark to the fanfare at the palace and makes a statement about Claudius’ hypocrisy. Through diction, doubling and figurative language, Shakespeare reveals Claudius to be a self centered, hypocritical, manipulative and commanding politician.
In the prayer scene, Hamlet misses his best opportunity to kill Claudius and avenge his father’s death. With no guards around, Claudius is alone and he is unaware that Hamlet is lurking in the shadows. The scene is set for Hamlet to take vengeance for his father’s unsettled spirit. However, Hamlet does not kill him, because Claudius is repenting for his sins, allowing him to go to heaven when he is to die. As one’s religion often dictated the afterlife of one’s soul, King Hamlet is doomed to an eternity in purgatory. Hamlet does not feel it is fair for Claudius to go to heaven, while his father is at unrest, so he decides instead to kill Claudius while he is doing something sinful. This is ironic because Claudius says he is not really praying; he is just going through the ...
Considered to be one of the most famous playwrights written in the history of English literature, Hamlet is no doubt a complex play and far from being easy to decipher. The protagonist finds himself entangled within a slew of different predicaments ranging from love, incest, death, murder, and even touches upon the spiritual world when his father’s apparition presents himself with the task of avenging his death. How he goes about handling all of these difficulties has been a debate for decades and continues to baffle even the greatest minds today. However, in order for Hamlet to uncover the truth and fulfill the task he is given, he must put on an act of madness in which the other characters mistake him to have truly lost his mind. While he
Old Hamlet is killed by his brother Claudius. Only two months after her husband’s death a vulnerable Gertrude marries her husband’s brother Claudius. Gertrude’s weakness opens the door for Claudius to take the throne as the king of Denmark. Hamlet is outraged by this, he loses respect for his mother as he feels that she has rejected him and has taken no time to mourn her own husband’s death. One night old Hamlets ghost appears to prince Hamlet and tells him how he was poisoned by his own brother. Up until this point the kingdom of Denmark believed that old Hamlet had died of natural causes. As it was custom, prince Hamlet sought to avenge his father’s death. This leads Hamlet, the main character into a state of internal conflict as he agonises over what action and when to take it as to avenge his father’s death. Shakespeare’s play presents the reader with various forms of conflict which plague his characters. He explores these conflicts through the use of soliloquies, recurring motifs, structure and mirror plotting.
Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most well-known tragedies. At first glance, it holds all of the common occurrences in a revenge tragedy which include plotting, ghosts, and madness, but its complexity as a story far transcends its functionality as a revenge tragedy. Revenge tragedies are often closely tied to the real or feigned madness in the play. Hamlet is such a complex revenge tragedy because there truly is a question about the sanity of the main character Prince Hamlet. Interestingly enough, this deepens the psychology of his character and affects the way that the revenge tragedy takes place. An evaluation of Hamlet’s actions and words over the course of the play can be determined to see that his ‘outsider’ outlook on society, coupled with his innate tendency to over-think his actions, leads to an unfocused mission of vengeance that brings about not only his own death, but also the unnecessary deaths of nearly all of the other main characters in the revenge tragedy.