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Borderline Personality Disorder In Shakespeare's Hamlet

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The play “Hamlet” by Shakespeare is about a young prince named Hamlet who wants to avenge his father. Sadly, he is losing his mental health at the same time. I believe that Hamlet is suffering from a mental illness. The diagnosis that I’d give Hamlet would be Borderline Personality Disorder because the main definition is someone suffering from multiple or at least two personalities. Some symptoms that Hamlet shows of Borderline Personality Disorder are a pattern of unstable, intense relationships, periods of stress-related paranoia and loss of contact with reality, wide mood swings that last from a few hours to a few days, and inappropriate, strong anger. For example, Hamlet shows a pattern of unstable, intense relationships because in Act 2 Scene 1 Ophila is …show more content…

This shows unstable and intense relationships because Hamlet and Ophelia loved each other but Hamlet is showing symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder while he's acting “crazy” with Ophelia. Secondly, another time Hamlet shows any symptoms is when he shows the symptoms of periods of stress-related paranoia and loses contact with reality. This is proven when the King is talking to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Act 3 Scene 1. “He does feel himself distracted, but from what cause he will by no means speak,” (Shakespeare 65). Rosencrantz is stating that Hamlet does feel like he is lost, but he won't go into detail on why he would, which shows that he might be dealing with another personality. Once again, throughout the whole play, Hamlet shows wide mood swings that last from a few hours to a few days. The major mood swing is in Act 3 Scene 4 when he explodes with anger towards his mother the Queen, the cause of the mood swing was triggered by the hatred he felt about the Queen marrying her dead husband's brother. “Look here upon this picture.Nor sense to essay was never so thralled,” (Shakespeare 93). This was the big statement he yelled at the

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