Insanity as a Weapon in Hamlet by William Shakespeare

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“Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder” (I.iv.31); the words that changed Hamlet tremendously. As Hamlet meets the ghost of his dead father; he finds out that Claudius, his father’s brother, poisoned him. Hamlet then puts on an act of insanity. No one really knows why he has gone so mad. Hamlet uses insanity as a weapon to avenge his father’s death. Converting back to sanity, Hamlet’s thoughts and actions lets us know how and what he is really feeling. Hamlet shifts back and forth between sanity and insanity, which ironically, slows his over aching goal of revenge.
Hamlet’s psychology is only what is in his mind. Shakespeare writes how Hamlet lacks self-worth in the beginning of his first soliloquy. He wishes his flesh would melt away into a vapor and wishes that God had not made a law against suicide. It shows how Hamlet moves through a series of emotions in the play, beginning with grief, depression, madness, and pain. Not only did old Hamlet’s death play a part in Hamlet’s “antic disposition” (I.iv.192), but so did his mother and uncle. Their incestuous marriage is what brin...

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