Sanity Through Tragedy The definition of sanity is the ability to think and behave in a normal and rational manner. Hamlet shows numerous signs of being crazy, but it is more an act than a mental state. Countless people think that maybe he is just mad. Madness is the state of being mentally ill. Hamlet does not show any evidence of this being a mental illness. He is strictly trying to deal with all his problems, and get revenge from which his dead father has instructed him to do. To get the revenge that his father wants him to get he has to act crazy which leads to several people thinking he is mentally insane. He shifts to the acts of insanity to meet his short-term goals. In William Shakespeare’s literary work the main character Hamlet switches …show more content…
Hamlet behaves rational when he is in the presence of Horatio, Bernardo, and Francisco. When he is around Polonius, Ophelia, Claudius, Gertrude, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern he acts irrational. This proves that his insanity is just an act and he is truly sane. He changes the insanity to the form of words and actions. Hamlet tells Horatio that he is going to indulge madness and if Horatio notices any strange behavior from him to not think anything about it because he is putting on an act (Shakespeare I. V. 190-194). Hamlet hurts Ophelia, Gertrude, and Polonius and by wounding these characters, he is indirectly hurting Claudius. Hamlet’s fake insanity helps him achieve his short-term goals of getting revenge on Claudius. The way Hamlet acts around Ophelia is another act of insanity. Ophelia and Hamlet are truly in love with each other but can not be together. Hamlet seems to act out around Ophelia which leads to the thought of insanity. Ophelia comes to her father Polonius and tells him that Hamlet scared her and has gone crazy. “My Lord, as I was sewing in my closet, Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced, No hat upon his head, his stockings fouled, ungartered, and down-gyved to his ankle; Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other, And with a look so piteous in purport as if he had been loosed out of hell To speak or horrors, he comes before me”(Shakespeare II.I. 87-94). This act …show more content…
Hamlet is instructed by his father to get revenge on Claudius. Old Hamlet wants his son to act insane to possibly get away with the revenge he is going to place on Claudius. “Haste me to know’t, that I, with wings as swift as meditation or the thoughts of love, may sweep to my revenge. (Shakespeare I. v. 33-35). Hamlet is all for getting revenge on Claudius but this does not show that he is insane it shows he is just obeying his father. Further within the play Hamlet begins to show us that he is really sane and begins to feel some shame. “.. I do not know Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do,' Sith I have cause, and will and strength, and means To do 't. Examples gross as earth exhort me: Witness this army of such mass and charge, Led by a delicate and tender prince, Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd Makes mouths at the invisible event, Exposing what is mortal and unsure To all that fortune, death and danger dare Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great Is not to stir without great argument, But greatly to find quarrel in a straw When honor's at the stake. How stand I, then, That have a father kill'd, a mother stained, Excitements of my reason and my blood, And let all sleep, while, to my shame, I see The imminent death of twenty thousand men That, for a fantasy and trick of fame Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause, Which
Hamlet’s madness was deliberately acted in order to follow his future plans. He deeply wanted to gain revenge for his father’s murder. Hamlet wisely began to feign his madness intentionally to get around Claudius’ back and eventually kill him. He was fully aware of strategies and he acknowledged it himself, “That I am not in madness, but mad in craft.” (III. iv. 187-188) Hamlet also shows his “madness” towards particular characters and not to others. “When moving among his intimate friends, he is consistently sane, and feigns madness only in the presence of those who, he fears, will thwart his secrest design.” (Blackmore, 54) With Horatio, Hamlet seemed sane and kept his wits closely. However, with Claudius, Gertrude, and Ophelia, he hid behind a mask of insanity.
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 Hamlet a philosophically minded prince who delays taking action because his knowledge of his uncle’s crime is so uncertain. To begin with, Hamlet portrays himself as sane.
In Shakespeare’s play Hamlet the main character Hamlet experiences many different and puzzling emotions. He toys with the idea of killing himself and then plays with the idea of murdering others. Many people ask themselves who or what is this man and what is going on inside his head. The most common question asked about him is whether or not he is sane or insane. Although the door seems to swing both ways many see him as a sane person with one thought on his mind, and that is revenge. The first point of his sanity is while speaking with Horatio in the beginning of the play, secondly is the fact of his wittiness with the other characters and finally, his soliloquy.
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.
Throughout Shakespeare?s play, Hamlet, the main character, young Hamlet, is faced with the responsibility of attaining vengeance for his father?s murder. He decides to feign madness as part of his plan to gain the opportunity to kill Claudius. As the play progresses, his depiction of a madman becomes increasingly believable, and the characters around him react accordingly. However, through his inner thoughts and the apparent reasons for his actions, it is clear that he is not really mad and is simply an actor simulating insanity in order to fulfill his duty to his father.
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.
Hamlet decides to portray an act of insanity, as part of his plan to seek revenge for his father's murder. As the play progresses, the reader may start to believe Hamlet’s “insane” act, but throughout the scenes, Hamlet shows that he knows right from wrong, good from bad, and his friends from his enemies. Hamlet shows that he still has power and control over his actions. As Elliot says “Hamlet madness is less than madness and more feigned”. Hamlet portrays a mad man, in order to be free from questioning, thus allowing him to have an easier path towards revenge.
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's public persona is a facade he has created to carry out his ulterior motives. The outside world's perception of him as being mad is of his own design. Hamlet is deciding what he wants others to think about him. Polonius, a close confidant of the King, is the leading person responsible for the public's knowledge of Hamlet's madness. The idea that Hamlet is mad centers around the fact that he talks to the ghost of his dead father. He communicates with his dead father's ghost twice, in the presence of his friends and again in the presence of his mother. By being in public when talking to the ghost, the rumor of his madness is given substance.
By the time Hamlet was written, “madness” was already a popular element within revenge tragedies in the Elizabethan period. But, the role of madness in Hamlet was deeply ambiguous, which set it apart from the other revenge tragedies in its time. Whereas other revenge tragedy protagonists were the complete opposite and just simply insane. Hamlet fiddles with the idea of being insane, which is where it all began. Hamlet states, “How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself, / As I perchance hereafter shall think meet/ To put an antic disposition on” (1.5.58-60) but his sane mental state began to decay over time leaving him actually insane. As the play goes on the role of madness becomes much larger and more crucial, and begins to sweep the spotlight from the other themes within it.
After several attempts to kill Hamlet fail, Claudius teams up with Laertes and tries to murder Hamlet once and for all. Each of these plans directly or indirectly caused Hamlet’s death. After Hamlet talks to the ghost of his father, he finds out that Claudius killed him to gain the throne of Denmark. Hamlet has to get revenge by killing Claudius. To do this, he must act insane to draw away suspicion from himself. Hamlet says to Hortaio "How strange or odd some’er I bear myself as I perchanse hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on,"(I;v;170-172).
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 father's murderer. In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare Hamlet is sane but acts insane to fulfill his destiny of getting vengeance on his father's murderer.
Acting insane is the only way he can get people to stay away from his plan. Hamlet gives up everything even his one true love Ophelia to avenge his fathers death. Letting go of everything he loves and acting insane is step one of Hamlets plan of revenge. Hamlet states,
Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, is a play about the murder of a king and the internal destruction of a kingdom. The main character, namely Hamlet, is perceived as becoming more and more crazy as the play progresses, but he is actually not crazy and is just pretending to be. Hamlet is deceiving everyone by acting crazy so he can get away with a lot more than a supposed sane person would. Hamlet’s faked madness has allowed him to insult Claudius, the king, on multiple occasions, it allows him to get away with murder, and it allows him to carry out his mission that was given to him by his father to kill Claudius. There have been a few occasions where Hamlet has slipped from his act of madness into actual insanity, but aside from those occasions, Hamlet is actually not insane throughout the duration of the play.
For one example, when Hamlet goes to Gertrude’s room and discovers that someone is eavesdropping behind the curtain, he lashes out and stabs through the curtain, thinking (and hoping) that it was king Claudius. However, because of his anger and quick rage, he ends up killing Polonius, for which he feels guilty. “For this same lord, I do repent.” (Hamlet) (Act III, Scene IV, Lines 175-176). Hamlet’s insanity also has effects upon himself. When Claudius becomes suspicious of Hamlet’s madness, he sends someone to check on him and see if he really is insane. "Get from him why he puts on this confusion" (Claudius) (Act III, Scene I, Line 2). However, Hamlet’s reaction to their questionings did not tell him that he was insane. "What he spake, though it lacked form a little. Was not like madness." (Act III, Scene I, Lines 163-4). King Claudius decided to send him away to England in order to prevent any danger in his kingdom. “Will be some danger—which for to prevent, I have in quick determination. Thus set it down: he shall with speed to England” (Claudius) (Act III, Scene I, Lines