Antic Disposition In Hamlet Speech Analysis

Antic Disposition means “a frivolous or deliberate playfulness. It may also mean bizarre, irrational or threatening behavior closer to madness than madcap” (Reference.com). Prince Hamlet is depressed. He was summoned home to Denmark to attend his father’s funeral. He is shocked to find that his mother Gertrude already remarried. His mother, the Queen, married Hamlet’s uncle Claudius. To Hamlet, his mother marriage to the dead king’s brother is incest. Hamlet wants revenge on his uncle so he proposes to be mad to distract him from his plan of killing him. Many people think his madness is true, but I personally believe it is all just a good act. Immediately after his first meeting with the Ghost of his father, Hamlet indicates that he is thinking

One example of this is the “To be, or not to be” (Act 3, scene 1) speech. This speech is one of the most famous speeches from the play. Hamlet thinks of many questions; an example of this is his question on the afterlife. He comes up with the question: if everyone was certain of the grand life of the afterlife, then what is stopping them from committing suicide? There is also an underline meaning that a lot of people are afraid of the afterlife, in this soliloquy. And Hamlet had gone mad he would not have had the mental capacity to voice these questions. This is more evidence to the fact that Hamlet was acting and not actually

The King plans a fencing match between Hamlet and Laertes. The plan is to cut the rubber off of the fencing knife and douse it in poising. When the knife cuts Hamlets skin it will kill him. If not they have a plan b to have a cup of wine to toast him for his win and that cup will be poisoned. Unfortunately neither plan works at first. The Queen ends up drinking from the cup in honor of Hamlet winning the first match. When they fight again Laertes is cut by his own poisoned sword and has to expose the king for killing the Queen and trying to kill hamlet. Hamlet was pretty calm during all of this until Queen Gertrude falls to her death and Laertes exposes why. This is when Hamlet goes mad, and kills the King by stabbing him and making him drink the rest of the poison. This shows that Hamlet was not really crazy the whole time, but that when the King murdered his mother he had a right to get upset and go off on him. Hamlet’s madness is questionable through his actions and the reactions from others. Shakespeare seems to leave it up to us to decide whether his madness is feigned or real. In conclusion we can see that he acts different from Ophelia who we know is truly mad. Hamlet played his antic deposition very well, not only did he fool King Claudius, it seems he fools a lot of people who are reading it. The theme we can see in Hamlet is sometimes you have to act insane to achieve the goals you