The Importance Of Madness In Hamlet By William Shakespeare

Societal expectations have, for centuries, dictated what feelings and beliefs are acceptable

to express and what impulses and compulsions are acceptable to act upon. Undesirable thoughts,

beliefs, and actions are consequently either ignored or repressed. Repression of innate, natural

reactions and emotions often leads to violent outbursts, general unhappiness, unresolved issues,

madness, and ultimately, destructive, detrimental behaviors. The increasing violence resulting

from detrimental compulsions then often lead to irrational actions that are observed, in the end,

to contribute to the insane person’s untimely death, and the deaths of those around them.

Repressed emotions and suppressed desires, when paired with deep-seated

Madness is, in Shakespeare’s works, a metaphorical dais upon which the truth can be lain

out for all to see but none to comprehend. Hamlet’s adopted “antic disposition” allows him to

prove Claudius’s guilt as a murderer; allows him to fully see the truth surrounding his father’s

death (I.v.173). The King’s reaction to “The Mouse-trap”, Hamlet’s play, “upon the talk of the

poisoning” verifies his guilt, as his fleeing the play reinforces Hamlet’s suspicions that Claudius

murdered the former king, his father, in a similar fashion as the character in the play (III.ii.307).

In assuming insanity, Hamlet “took a mask to conceal his own designs, to discover the secrets of

the King” (Snider 73). He is only able to stage the play and reveal the truth because inviting the

players to the castle is an attempt by his friends to rescue him from the crushing grief

Her madness is a result of “the poison of deep grief; it

springs all from her father’s death”, her deep sense of loss (IV.v.75-76). Ophelia’s grief for her

father conflicts with her love for Hamlet, as he was Polonius’s slayer: thus, “the unresolvable

conflict of loyalties – to Polonius and to Hamlet – will ultimately drive her mad”, as her love for

her father dictates hatred towards Hamlet, but her love for Hamlet disallows hatred (Shapiro

130). Her grief for both men “divided [Ophelia] from herself and her fair judgement”, as she is

unable to process the love that she feels for Hamlet in tandem with the hatred she is supposed to

harbor towards him and the love and grief she has for her father (IV.v.84). In killing Polonius,

Hamlet condemns Ophelia to madness, as she loses her purpose for living: she no longer has a

father or husband to care for, and now, never will. The emotional duress that she faces leads her

to mental ruin, as she “is in the intolerable predicament of having to turn away from the