The Consequences Of Being Insane In Hamlet By William Shakespeare

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Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, is a play about the murder of a king and the internal destruction of a kingdom. The main character, namely Hamlet, is perceived as becoming more and more crazy as the play progresses, but he is actually not crazy and is just pretending to be. Hamlet is deceiving everyone by acting crazy so he can get away with a lot more than a supposed sane person would. Hamlet’s faked madness has allowed him to insult Claudius, the king, on multiple occasions, it allows him to get away with murder, and it allows him to carry out his mission that was given to him by his father to kill Claudius. There have been a few occasions where Hamlet has slipped from his act of madness into actual insanity, but aside from those occasions, Hamlet is actually not insane throughout the duration of the play. …show more content…

These consequences could be punishable by as much as death, and that could be for the first known offense. Hamlet, however, would be considered a unique case for such a trial. In the play, Hamlet acts insane for multiple purposes; one of these purposes is for openly insulting the king. In the play, Hamlet openly and privately insults the king on multiple occasions. A major occasion in which Hamlet insults Claudius is when Hamlet chooses a variant of the play called The Murder of Gonzago for the actors to perform. He chooses this play to see what reaction he can trigger from the King. The play is about a brother murdering his brother in a garden by pouring poison in his ear to kill him and take his place as king, which is exactly how Claudius killed his brother, Hamlet. Hamlet is trying to make Claudius confess through

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