Mental Illness in Shakespeare's Works

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Throughout Shakespeare’s many works, mental illnesses have played an undeniable part in many of them, especially his tragedies. From Lady Macbeth hallucination of a bloody spot leading to her suicide, to Hamlet’s faked illness and Ophelia’s very real illness, afflictions of the mind are featured prominently in the Bard of Avalon’s many works. Still, in the Elizabethan era, understanding of mental illness was rudimentary at best, as were the methods of treating it. During the Middle Ages and Elizabethan Era, numerous theories about mental disorders and how to treat them abounded. Three plays of Shakespeare’s that feature mental illness most prominently are King Lear, Hamlet, and Macbeth, while also managing to showcase the conception of mental illness at the time.
Of the three plays, King Lear is the one that examines mental illness the most. King Lear is the story of the titular king, Lear, his decision to exclude his third daughter, Cordelia, from her inheritance, the abuse he suffers at the hands of his other two daughters, Goneril and Regan, and his descent into insanity, before dying. Possibly the first indication of Lear’s madness is when he declares, “Since now we will divest us both of rule,/Interest of territory, cares of state,/--Which of you shall we say doth love us most? That we our largest bounty may extend.”(King Lear 1.1.49). What Lear is saying here is, to his daughters, that the one who declares she loves him the most will acquire the most land and property. This scene is the setup for the entire play, and so could be viewed as the beginning of Lear’s descent into madness. It is at this point that Lear’s sanity begins rapidly decaying. It begins with him recognizing his madness, crying, “O, let me not be mad, not ...

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