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Madness and Insanity in Shakespeare's Hamlet
Madness and Insanity in Shakespeare's Hamlet
Madness and Insanity in Shakespeare's Hamlet
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Comparing Shakespeare's Hamlet and Marlowe of Conrad's Heart of Darkness
Prince Hamlet, of Shakespeare's famed tragedy, and Marlowe of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, are similarly situated characters. Despite superficially different settings and plots, there is a remarkably similar thematic element shared between both works. Prince Hamlet and Marlowe are brought to the very brink of insanity by their immersion in worlds gone mad, yet still succeed. At their roots, the similarities of the environments they are immersed in are remarkable. Whether their environment is a “too too sullied” (1057) Royal Danish court, or the dark madness of a murderous Congolese jungle, the relationship between a sane man’s mind, and a man’s insane world is openly explored.
In Hamlet: Prince of Denmark and in Heart of Darkness many similarities exist between the madness that both stories are surrounded in. Despite the obvious differences of the Congo and Copenhagen, both worlds are places where evil abounds and territory where man has brought on that evil. The destructive greed and lust for power that drove Hamlet’s uncle, Cladius, to murder his own brother, have tainted and steeped the Danish court in corruption. In Heart of Darkness, the madness stems from the desire for power in the form of valuable ivory. The power of ivory in Heart of Darkness is not only apparent because it drives “civilized” men like, Mr. Kurtz to commit his savage acts, but also because how quickly Marlowe becomes aware of its power. Upon Marlowe’s arrival to the Central Station he observes, "The word 'ivory' rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. You would think they were praying to it.” (1639). In Hamlet and Heart of Darkness, the ultimate...
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...s when he avenges his father’s murder and restores the upright and dignified nature of the Danish throne (to Fortinbras), and Marlowe succeeds when he retrieves the brutal Kurtz from “the heart of darkness”. More importantly however, Hamlet and Marlowe within themselves struggle against insanity, the evil that tries to pour into them from their madness-drenched worlds, and both men succeed.
Bibliography:
Angus, Mitchell. “New Light on the Heart of Darkness” http://www.britannica.com/magazine/article?content_id=145991. January 9, 2007
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. “Lecture XII.” Hamlet. Ed. Edward Hubler. New York: Signet Classics, 1987.
Conrad, Joseph. “Heart of Darkness.” An Introduction to Literature. Ed. Barnet, et al. New York: Longman, 2000.
Shakespeare, William. “Hamlet.” An Introduction to Literature. Ed. Barnet, et al. New York: Longman, 2000.
After demolishing the theories of other critics, Bradley concluded that the essence of Hamlet’s character is contained in a three-fold analysis of it. First, that rather than being melancholy by temperament, in the usual sense of “profoundly sad,” he is a person of unusual nervous instability, one liable to extreme and profound alterations of mood, a potential manic-depressive type. Romantic, we might say. Second, this Hamlet is also a person of “exquisite moral sensibility, “ hypersensitive to goodness, a m...
There are many topics deeply hidden in the works of William Shakespeare. One of his greatest pieces of works is the story of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Not only are the words of Shakespeare meaningful, but there are also many follow up pieces of literature that contain important interpretations of the events in this play. These works about Hamlet are extremely beneficial to the reader. I have found four of these works and will use them as sources throughout this essay. The first source is “The Case of Hamlet’s Conscience,” by Catherine Belsey, and it focuses on the topic of Hamlet’s revenge in the play. The second source is “’Never Doubt I Love’: Misreading Hamlet,” by Imtiaz Habib, and it explains a lot of information about Hamlet’s “love” for Ophelia. The third source is “Shakespeare’s Hamlet, III.i.56—88,” by Horst Breuer, and it talks in depth about the issue of suicide in Hamlet. The fourth and final source is “Shakespeare’s Hamlet 1.2.35-38,” by Kathryn Walls, and it describes the significance of the role the Ghost plays throughout Hamlet. There are many different confusing parts in Hamlet and the best way to fully understand the play is to understand all of these parts. By understanding every miniscule detail in the play, it creates a different outlook on the play for the reader. In this essay, I will explain these confusing topics, as well as explain why the sources are helpful and what insight they can bring. At the end is this essay, the reader will have a complete understanding and appreciation of the play Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.
Watts, Cedric. 'Heart of Darkness.' The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad. Ed. J.H. Stape. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 45-62.
Shakespeare, William. "Hamlet." Madden, Frank. Exploring Literature. 4th ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2009. Print 539-663
Throughout William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, Hamlet undergoes a transformation from sane to insane while fighting madness to avenge his father’s death. The material that Shakespeare appropriated in writing Hamlet is the story of a Danish prince whose uncle murders the prince’s father, marries his mother, and claims the throne. The prince pretends to be feeble-minded to throw his uncle off guard, then manages to kill his uncle in revenge. Shakespeare changed the emphasis of this story entirely, making his Hamlet a philosophically minded prince who delays taking action because his knowledge of his uncle’s crime is so uncertain.
Findlay, Alison. "Hamlet: A Document in Madness." New Essays on Hamlet. Ed. Mark Thornton Burnett and John Manning. New York: AMS Press, 1994. 189-205.
Shakespeare, William. “Hamlet.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. 11th ed. New York: Norton, 2013.1709-1804. Print.
Boklund, Gunnar. "Hamlet." Essays on Shakespeare. Ed. Gerald Chapman. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965.
Shakespeare, William. "Hamlet." The Norton Introduction to Literature. Eds. Alison Booth, and Kelly J. Mays. Tenth. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2011. 1024-1129. Print.
Shakespeare, William. The Three-Text Hamlet. Eds. Paul Bertram and Bernice Kliman. New York: AMS Press, 1991.
Hamlet is a tale of tragedy by Shakespeare which tells the story of the prince of Denmark who is on a quest to avenge the death of his father at the hands of his uncle whom subsequently becomes king of Denmark. This is what fuels the fire in the play as Hamlet feels the responsibility to avenge his father’s death by his uncle Claudius; however, Claudius assumed the throne following the death of hamlets father. It is in this context that we see the evolution of hamlets character from a student and young prince of Denmark to the protagonist and tragic hero in the play.
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness 3rd Ed. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. New York: Norton Critical, 1988.
* Conrad, Joseph. “Heart of Darkness” in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, M.H. Abrams, general editor. (London: W.W. Norton, 1962, 2000)
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.
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness 3rd ed. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. New York: Norton Critical, 1988.