Madness And Madness In Hamlet

In Shakespeare 's Hamlet, the word “madness” is used a total of 18 times. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “madness” can be defined as, “a state of severe mental illness; extremely foolish behavior resembling insanity”. Hamlet’s personal situation mirrors this exact definition because his whole family believes him to be insane or mad. “Madness” is also defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as, “a state of frenzied or chaotic activity”. This definition also directly relates to Hamlet because chaos is at the root of the whole play. In their anger all of the characters believe that they can control one another as well as the whole situation. They believe themselves to be infallible within “frenzied activity”. The notion of

Horatio warns that the ghost may “deprive [his] sovereignty of reason” and “draw [him] into madness”, while the ghost’s intentions do not seem to be malicious, soon after the encounter Hamlet decides to act insane for personal gain. This initial glimpse of madness blurs the rest of Hamlets choices in the play. The audience has trouble distinguishing whether his choices are merely an act or true insanity. This distinction becomes even more blurred in the last scene of Act 3 and the first scene in Act 4. Hamlet unknowingly murders Polonius during his private talk with his mother. He does not stop at merely killing an innocent man, however, and proceeds to, “draw apart the body he hath kill’d/O’er whom his very madness, like some ore/Among a mineral of metals base”(4.1.25-27). Hamlet kills a man, and, like a mad man, “from his mother’s closet hath he dragg’d him”(4.1.36). This irrational behavior leads to questions all of Hamlet’s behaviors. The audience loses sight of Hamlets mental stability and is left to question rather all of his actions are planned or if they are just the products of mad