Essay On Insanity In Hamlet

Throughout William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Hamlet’s level of sanity drastically changes from the beginning to the end. In the beginning of the play, Hamlet is not insane, just grief stricken. To try and get revenge for his father’s death, Hamlet begins to act like he is crazy. Pretending that he is insane slowly causes him to actually become insane. Hamlet drove himself crazy by pretending to be crazy. In Act 1, Hamlet starts out as a normal person, suffering through the death of his father. He is so upset over the death that he even says, “Oh, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew, Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!” Hamlet wishes that he would die and that God had not made a religious law against suicide. Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius, took the throne after Hamlet’s father died. When Hamlet finds out that it was him that killed his father, he plans to seek revenge. “How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself (As I perchance hereafter shall think meet To put an antic

He goes into his mother’s room and while they argue, Hamlet finds Polonius behind the tapestry. “How now, a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead!” Hamlet exclaims, as he stabs Polonius through the tapestry. Throughout the rest of the play, Hamlet shows no remorse for killing Polonius. Also in Act 3, Hamlet’s father comes to him to push him back on track. He comes to Hamlet right after his argument with his mother, and she thinks he is crazy because she can not see the ghost. To his mother, Hamlet is just talking and looking into thin air. To make matters worse, Hamlet starts trying to make her see the ghost. He says to her, “Why, look you there! Look how it steals away— My father, in his habit as he lived— Look where he goes, even now, out at the portal!” as the ghost left the room. This makes him seem even more insane because he can see his father’s ghost, but his mother