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Examples Of Mental Illness In Hamlet

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Mentally Ill There are many different types of mental illnesses that usually originate from traumatic events that happen in one's life. Hamlet, the main character in the play Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare, went through multiple traumatic events. These events affected Hamlet’s mental health throughout the play. The events that led Hamlet to depression also led him to have bad thoughts and to do crazy things. Hamlet was already struggling mentally so when he is told bad, new information about his father’s death, it adds to his mental decline. This leads to Hamlet’s anger growing and he becomes unhealthily obsessed with getting vengeance. His plan to succeed in taking his revenge was to act insane. This facade of insanity helps lead to the decline of Hamlet's mental …show more content…

By the end of the play, all of these things leave Hamlet truly insane. Hamlet's poor mental state is shown as the play progresses through his displays of depression, his pretend madness, and his obsession with revenge. At the beginning of the play, it is introduced that Hamlet's father has died and his mother is getting hastily remarried. There is no time for Hamlet to process his feelings as the two events are only months apart. Hamlet is depressed by the death of his father and his mother marrying so soon after his father’s death. After he meets and talks to his mother and new king, Hamlet speaks his first soliloquy. During Hamlet’s soliloquy, he expresses that he has a want to kill himself but he says “his canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! Oh, God, God, “(1.2.132). Hamlet is acknowledging that even though he wants to kill himself God is against it. At this time Hamlet would not go against God, but as the play continues Hamlet has more suicidal

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One definition of madness is “mental delusion of the eccentric behavior arising from it.” However, as Emily Dickinson once wrote, “Much madness is divinest Sense/ To a discerning Eye.” In Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, the main character, Prince Hamlet, shows apparent madness which proves to serve an important role throughout the story. This erratic behavior consists of his seemingly senseless dialogues, his loss of care for Ophelia, and his increasingly aggressive nature. Such behavior often proves justified by the play’s audience due to its convincing nature despite Hamlet’s predisposition towards insanity.

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After a month or two of analyzing Hamlet and the people around him, I feel like I can conclusively determine he suffers from a mental illness. But the question is what. What mental illness might he suffer from. There are hundreds of different mental disabilities. Each has endless possible ways of linking it back to Hamlet in some way, shape or form.

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1140 Words | 5 Pages

After King Hamlet’s death Hamlet, his one and only son, was thought to have been going mad by almost every character in the book, Hamlet, by William Shakespeare. Hamlet’s madness is due to the fact that he has a bipolar disorder; he displays all of the symptoms of being bipolar such as being depressed, having suicidal thoughts, and being irritable. One side effect of bipolar disorder is depression. Hamlet throughout the book realizes that he is depressed and that he what he is doing is not particularly correct. “But I feel something inside that goes beyond the outward display of mourning” (Shakespeare 26).

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Throughout the play, Hamlet has various points where he is confronted with suicidal thoughts or attempts. Throughout Hamlet’s first soliloquy “Oh, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, / Thaw resolve itself into a dew, / Or that the Everlasting had not fixed/ His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! Oh God, God!”

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1514 Words | 7 Pages

An overwhelming amount of evidence shows that Hamlet faked his insanity to confuse the king and his accomplices. Often revered for their emotional complexities, William Shakespeare’s tragic characters display various signs of mental illness. Sylvia Morris notes “Hamlet contains Shakespeare’s most fully-developed study of mental illness, and has always intrigued commentators on the play.” (“Shakespeare’s Minds Diseased: Mental Illness and its Treatment”). When looking at the play, one can infer that Shakespeare makes the relationship between sanity and insanity undistinguishable from one another.

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1598 Words | 7 Pages

Various psychological disorders can be applied to Hamlet, but the main ones include Borderline Personality Disorder, Bipolar Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder. Possibilities Observing Hamlet’s actions throughout the play, it is possible to say that he suffers from three major disorders, Borderline personality disorder, Bipolar Disorder, and Major Depressive Disorder. Borderline Personality Disorder (BDP) is a disorder identified when a person has difficulties in controlling emotions. According to NAMI, BDP includes symptoms such as “…severe, unstable mood swings, impulsivity and instability, poor self-image and stormy relationships” (nami.org). People who suffer from BDP frequently aim to avoid members of their family or friends.

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Like many things, Hamlet is intelligent and honorable, but his indecisiveness is the cause of his tragic downfall. In the play Hamlet, William Shakespeare portrays that Hamlet is very incapable of finishing the task at hand. Throughout the drama Hamlet faces many trials and tribulations due to his late father Hamlet, who was murderously killed by Claudius. His inability to kill Claudius and himself is one grand flaw of an epic hero. After King Hamlets passing, Hamlet entered an unknown state of mind that not only feared others for his wellbeing, but also feared himself.

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There are moments in this world where someone can be so depressed that they do not want to live any longer. Many teenagers experience the same stress as Hamlet did in the play from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The character Hamlet is under stressed due to the death of his father who he loved a lot, and the early remarriage of his mother with his uncle. In addition, Hamlet is even more stressed out when the ghost presented itself as Hamlet’s father and wanted Hamlet to revenge for his father’s death. Even though Hamlet is under stress he remained between the state of sane or temporarily insane throughout the play.

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It was hard for Hamlet to act crazy because he was still grieving over his father 's death and his mother not showing that she cares. Hamlet also lost Ophelia which makes his situation even worse than it was because he has no one in his. No family, no girlfriend, no one. Hamlet feels betrayed by his mother and feels like he can 't trust anyone. Shakespeare gives Hamlet these struggles in the play to amplify the mental and psychological events that make the reader feel bad about what all happened to Hamlet.

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In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the perspective of Hamlet’s mental health is depicted through his actions and thoughts by pretending to be mad, and how other characters view him. The key theme of this play is that one’s mental health can cause an uproar of problems. I chose this as the theme because throughout the play you watch Hamlet make deranged decisions in his actions and the things he says to certain people. You also watch Hamlet go through his own grieving process by doing things that are mainly driven by his emotions from his father's passing, his mother Gertrude marrying his uncle, Claudius, and other conflicts he has with other characters throughout the play. Starting off in Act 1, Hamlet is struggling with the passing of his Father and

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1153 Words | 5 Pages

He is depressed and suicidal as indicated in his infamous quote, “To be, or not to be: that is the question.” (3.1.57). However, while many may choose to carry on after the death of a loved one, Hamlet chose to hold on to his sorrow and pretended to be mad so he can know the truth behind his father’s death. Hamlet’s tragic life is not the cause for his madness. Hamlet drives himself to the brink of insanity

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Oh God, God” (I.ii.129-132). Hamlet went on a rant to himself about how mad he was that his mother married his uncle so soon after his father’s death and he thought about ending his life. He later goes on to say how suicide is a sin, which is another thing to fuel his anger; but it does not stop him from killing himself in act

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542 Words | 3 Pages

In Hamlet, Shakespeare uses many references to sanity and insanity. Throughout the play, Hamlet goes back and forth between sanity and insanity, whether pretending to be insane just to mess with those he does not like or to save himself from getting in trouble. Hamlet is actually one of the smartest characters in the play, which is why he can pull off acting crazy so well. Shakespeare uses this idea of sanity and insanity to help the plot change and take a different directions. One of the most discussed topics of the Hamlet is whether Hamlet is insane or if he was just pretending the whole time.

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451 Words | 2 Pages

In Shakespeare’s tragedy, Hamlet, there are a series of events that causes Hamlet to act abnormally. He has to deal with his father’s death, mother’s remarriage, and his lover Ophelia. However, it is often argued whether Hamlet’s madness is real or fake. Throughout the tragedy, he is over-exaggerating his madness for his plan of revenge.

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1004 Words | 5 Pages

Insanity is an idea that has been examined for a long time in numerous mediums such as films, music, plays, and even works of literature. William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” is no exception to that rule. Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most complex characters, and many scholars have been debating for centuries whether or not Hamlet is truly insane, or whether there is a particular reason for his odd behavior. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Hamlet merely pretends to be mad but in reality is sane.

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