Hamlet Essay

Madness is a state-of-mind were a person loses their sanity, they are mentally ill. In the play Hamlet, Hamlet meets his deceased father in a ghost form only to inform him of who caused his death and wants revenge. Now Hamlet must avenge his father's death, and the only way he can do it in a less obvious approach is by acting mad. But as the play continues, it becomes a lot harder to tell if Hamlet is still sane due to his actions. In the play Hamlet, William Shakespeare makes Hamlet's madness appear real but only to prove that he was only acting as if he were mad.

Throughout the play, there were certain cases that crafted the idea that Hamlet may have been mad. When he killed Polonius, Hamlet says "How now! a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead!" (III.IV). At this point it becomes really hard to tell if Hamlet is really insane because he kills without examining who was hiding behind the curtains, but only assumed that it was Claudius. Furthermore when he says "Dead for a ducat" he is betting that the person he attacked was dead and people that are sane don't bet on others life. Another instance where Hamlet may have been mad was when he followed the ghost, but his friends try to stop him but he responds with "Still am I called. Unhand me, gentlemen-- Heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me! I say, away" (I.IV). Hamlet decides to follow the ghost without a second thought if the ghost may be a devil or may bring him harm. The way Hamlet responds to the situation, rash and without a thought, are the similar characteristics of a mad man. At this point his madness appears very real but it could all be part of his plan to avenge his father's death by making people really believe his was insane making it less obvious of his real inte...

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... they discover the real cause of his madness, even though he is pretending to be mad, it gives Hamlet more time to avenge his father since they are focusing on what caused it instead of what he will do next.

In the end, it may seem like his madness was real, but throughout the whole play he only pretends to be mad. The way Hamlet was able to face on certain situations proves that he is not mad, but was trying his hardest to do the task assigned by his father. He may have made some rash decision but he only made them because if he were to wait, it could have ruined his whole plan of avenging his father by faking his madness. The way Shakespeare wrote the play made it hard to determine if his madness was real or not, but by analyzing the different actions, reactions, and hamlets way of thinking, we could come to a conclusion the Hamlet's madness was only imaginary.