Jacqueline Blanco Dr. Julie Barmazel Shakespeare’s Plays March 19, 2014 The Death of Thinking Hamlet once said, “for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”(2.2.253). The way a person thinks determines their being. Yes, once again just as many critics, I want to dissect the sanity of Hamlet. We will never know the truth behind his actions but along with the ideas of several other critics we can find answers to confirm his sanity. While exploring Davis’s thoughts on the sanity of Hamlet she quickly drew my attention with making the point, “His own testimony could not be regarded as conclusive-for, if he were truly mad, we could hardly accept his word for it; while if he seemed mad merely, we could hardly believe a present protestation that the appearance was all a sham”(Davis). Hamlet was not insane. He may have had conscious and unconscious emotional breaks throughout the play due to his tragic life events. On the contrary too call him mad or say that his actions stem from insanity seems like a scapegoat for not only his family but also the audience. Hamlet has a clear idea of reality and it was vivid enough for him to use his intellect to guide the map of his brain. Davis explains Hamlet had, "a great, an almost enormous, intellectual activity, and a proportionate aversion to real action consequent upon it. This character Shakespeare places in circumstances under which it is obliged to act on the spur of the moment”(Davis). Hamlet is broken yet determined to get his revenge. The beginning of the play explains a lot about why Hamlet has valid reasons to react the way he does throughout the play. The only way for him to survive his own internal conflicts was to have a firm understanding of his thoughts. ... ... middle of paper ... ...venge”(Wagner). Regardless of Hamlet’s love for Ophelia, she is used as a plant for his plan when convenient. It would be wrong to say that Hamlet never acted out of the ordinary, but it is clear “Hamlet is constantly aware of his own mental processes. More than that, he is aware that he is constantly watching them”(Kisch). Hamlet is full of conscious emotions but anger plays a huge factor in actions. Hamlet’s mania helps him complete his tasks along with releasing built up overwhelming emotions. Hamlet explains his plan of action to his closest friends while the Ghost is present, “How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself,/ As I perchance hereafter shall think meet/ To put an antic disposition on)” (1.5.170) Shakespeare’s text grounds the idea that Hamlet intends on creating an insane appearance. “Hamlet the hero simply put it on as a trick.”(Kydian).
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.
A couple of experts say Hamlet isn’t fully insane. However, looking into act one on his first soliloquy showing his madness and some parts from The Tragedy of Hamlet’s World View by Richard A. Levine, an English Professor. Also Tenney L. Davis has some good points in his The Sanity of Hamlet. However, act three has the best proof of hamlet’s psychological state as it becomes unstable.
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.
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 Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, the main character, Hamlet, must seek revenge for the murder of his father. Hamlet decides to portray an act of insanity, as part of his plan to murder Claudius. Throughout the play, Hamlet becomes more and more believable in his act, even convincing his mother that he is crazy. However, through his thoughts, and actions, the reader can see that he is in fact putting up an act, he is simply simulating insanity to help fulfil his fathers duty of revenge. Throughout the play, Hamlet shows that he understands real from fake, right from wrong and his enemies from his friends. Even in his madness, he retorts and is clever in his speech and has full understanding of what if going on around him. Most importantly, Hamlet does not think like that of a person who is mad. Hamlet decides to portray an act of insanity, as part of his plan to seek revenge for his fathers murder.
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.
... 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
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:
“As I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put on an antic disposition”(1.5.58). This is when Hamlet had talked to the ghost and he decided to feign being mad. He thought it would make him seem harmless to Claudius and that he would be able to get closer to him. In the beginning of the play Hamlet was able to talk to the spirit that may have been his father. He decided to feign madness and to try and kill the king.
The story of Hamlet is one centered around the theme of revenge with the purpose of showing how people will change in order to achieve their goals. Of course within that theme there are many sub themes such as Hamlet acting crazy for a majority of the play. The big question is, was that craziness part of a grand scheme of revenge or had Hamlet lost his mind? Hamlet may have been overdramatic, but he was simply using a ruse of madness in order to kill his uncle and gain his revenge.
In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the main character, Hamlet, is often perceived by the other characters in the play as being mentally unbalanced because he acts in ways that drive them to think he is mad. Hamlet may very well be psychotic; however, there are times when he “feigns insanity” in order to unearth the truth surrounding his father's death. This plan seems to be going well until Hamlet's mental state slowly begins to deteriorate. What began as an act of insanity or antic disposition transitions from an act to a tragic reality. After studying Hamlet's actions, one will notice that as the play progresses, his feigned insanity becomes less and less intentional and devolves into true mental illness.
Characters in Hamlet are intended to be affected by insanity, therefore throughout the play corrupted minds descent into madness bringing about tragic endings, sorrow-filled moments, and shameful events. Hamlet, a character from Shakespeare’s play, is portrayed as being affected by this illness. Critics state that Hamlet is truly insane. They demonstrate how Hamlet’s responses and behavior are linked to pure madness, but reasoning and constant planning are elements that Hamlet displays throughout the play. This is an indication that Hamlet is a man of awareness, so while his words and actions may indicate otherwise, Hamlet maintains both lucidity and sanity throughout the play. Hamlet’s apparent descent into madness was convincing, but his mind continued to have balance giving the impression that the “disease” of insanity was not there at all.
In William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, the reader is introduced to the main character, Hamlet, the prince of Denmark, who has returned home after hearing of the death of his father. However, once he arrives, Hamlet finds that his mother has married his uncle not long after his father’s death. At the beginning of the play, Hamlet encounters his father’s ghost. The ghost tells Hamlet that he was murdered by Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle and his mother’s new groom. Now the question stands, is Hamlet sane or is he simply mad? I believe Hamlet is in fact sane. Yes, he is distraught over the loss of his father and enraged but the betrayal of his uncle but instead of acting on anger Hamlet creates a façade of insanity to hide under. Hamlet even makes Horatio and Marcellus swear not to tell anyone that they saw the ghost or give any indication that they know of Hamlet’s seeming madness. Hamlet tells his friends that there might come a time where his act of insanity might come in handy, but not to mention what they know of the ghost. To me, this scene shows that Hamlet is devising a plan to act insane order to expose Claudius as the murderer. Another example that shows Hamlet’s sanity is when Hamlet, Claudius, and Gertrude watch a play that Hamlet has rewritten the end to. Hamlet writes the ending of the play to mirror the murder of his father and watches Claudius, looking for a reaction. Personally, I believe that this shows Hamlet’s sanity because of the thought and planning this
From the foregoing analysis it can be concluded that Hamlet is quite a sane person. His depression, the hopeless note in his attitude towards others and towards the value of life, his reference to ghost, his self accusations, his desperate efforts to get away from the thoughts of his duty are just a logical response to the circumstances in which he finds himself. This ambiguity is demonstrated by his alleged madness for he does behave madly to become perfectly calm and rational and instant later. He assumes antic-disposition only to undercover the truth and events relating to the death of his