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Hamlet Gone Mad Analysis

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“Have I gone Mad?” asked the Hatter (Carroll Alice In Wonderland). In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the main character Hamlet has to jump a lot of hurdles, including his mental health just like the Hatter. His father dies, his mother remarries his uncle, his friends betray him, and on top of all of that, everyone questions whether or not he is crazy. Hamlet’s craziness is visible because he speaks to ghosts, he can kill without remorse, and his many self-doubting soliloquies. The first piece of evidence that shows Hamlet is crazy is that he talks to ghosts. While talking to Gertrude during scene 3, Hamlet begins to yell at the ghost of his father. However, Gertrude cannot see or hear the ghost. “ ‘This the very coinage of your brain. This bodiless creation ecstasy/is very cunning in’” (Shakespeare III. iv. …show more content…

After he has slain Polonius, Hamlet talks to his mother about what he has just done. “‘I must be cruel only to be kind. Thus bad begins and worse remains behind’” (Shakespeare. III. iv. 181-182). Hamlet believes that God wanted him to kill. He feels no remorse for killing Polonius and tells his mother it is for the best that he is dead. While Hamlet’s ability to not feel remorse may seem strange, there are other people who experience it. Diagnosed Sociopath, M. E. Thomas, expresses her lack of emotional connection in her article “Confessions of a Sociopath”. Within the article she says, “ Remorse is alien to me. I have a penchant for deceit. I am generally free of entangling and irrational emotions” (Thomas). This description of a sociopath’s feeling allows us to link Hamlet to being mentally unstable and crazy. Not only does he lack remorse after causing the death of four people, but he also fails to have normal emotional ties with other characters. Even though Hamlet lacks many of the same things as a sociopath, there is still more evidence pointing towards his

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Title The renowned psychologist Robert hare’s psychopath checklist-revised or PCL-R for short, is a list of behavioral traits that psychopath’s share or have in common, and it was to my great surprise that Shakespeare’s character Hamlet displays almost every single trait, excluding a few simply because we do not know much of Hamlet's childhood. Throughout the play, Hamlet is known for feigning madness, and he is so convincing that it comes to the point where even his own mother doubts his sanity. Hamlet isn’t faking madness like he says, instead, he is a full fledged psychopath playing at being sane. In modern day society the word psychopath is predefined, immediately conjuring up images of deranged criminals, murderers or rapists.

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This is explained by the Ghost when Hamlet learns of his father being murdered in Act 1 Scene 5, in lines 35 -39, “’Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard, A serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark Is by a forged process of my death Rankly abused. But know, thou noble youth, The serpent that did sting thy father’s life . Now wears his crown.” 2) The soliloquies that Hamlet provides over the sequence of the entire play allows us to distinguish what Hamlet was thinking about and display how he was losing his sanity.

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The question of whether or not Hamlet was insane is of a never-ending debate. Was he always crazy? Was he always faking it? Or was he somewhere in between? In this paper I will share three different views and provide my own interpretation of Hamlet’s sanity.

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It is that persona that makes it such a challenge to understand him, but in fact, it can be that the reason that his feelings are widely unknown are not because he is completely inexpressible as he is portrayed, but can be the outcome of a plot that besmirched his character. Shakespeare’s fault was generating a story that unsettled Hamlet’s emotions, and so his madness is perceived as “a deliberate dissimulation” – a trick to gain revenge on his

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When betrayed, one usually has negative emotions towards the people who have betrayed them. In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare this idea is well illustrated, it is shown that betrayal affects the actions of Hamlet towards his friends and family, which indicates that the pursuit of vengeance often can cause one to forget the value of life. The betrayals that Hamlet suffered at the hands of his close friends and family, revealed important parts of Hamlet’s character, such as his intelligence, he is a very meticulous thinker that looks at situations from all angles, he is cunning, he has the ability to manipulate everyone into believing that he is insane, and he is skeptical, he does not believe any information until he finds it out for

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In the midst of Hamlet’s confrontation with his mother, the ghost appears and stares at him. Hamlet breaks down and tells the ghost not to look at him that way unless he wants him to cry instead of being powerful enough to get his revenge. While this happens, Gertrude holds to the belief that her son has gone mad as she watches him talk to himself. Gertrude can not see or hear the

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The personality of such characters as Hamlet from William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet is much remarked upon. However, it is even more meaningful to analyze changes in Hamlet’s character throughout the play. As Hamlet becomes more driven in his revenge, his actions lose morality and gain consequences. In fact, Shakespeare uses the relationship between a character’s cruelty and the meaning in the pain they cause to comment on the cyclically destructive nature of cruelty.

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Gertrude states to Hamlet that there is no ghost and that he has gone crazy. This clearly shows that Hamlet has gone insane and that everyone knows it but him (220-2223). For instance, Charlie Mason infamous serial killer states to the public that his murders are justifiable because he was doing it because god request him to do it in order to satisfy him. Similarity, to Hamlet who believes that he should kill Claudius because see he saw a ghost that looked

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In the play, Shakespeare portrays Hamlet as a dynamic character to cause a mental state conundrum among the audience and explore the themes of suicide, spying, friendship, madness, providence, love, hate and humour. Furthermore, by utilising literary devices such as soliloquy, characterisation, dialogue, personification, metaphor, dramatic and situational irony Shakespeare exploits these themes and questions Hamlet’s sanity. In the beginning, Hamlet is portrayed as an overthinking person, claiming to act an antic disposition. However, as the play advances his manic rage and irrational acts such as Polonius’s murder and

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(Hamlet 568-82). Hamlet feels pity for himself for being in such a horrible situations with his father’s death, his mother’s quick marriage, and his depression but he is angry at himself for not doing anything about his situation, for not avenging his father against a horrible person. He does not create a revenge plan, he does not speak for his father, etc. He is frustrated and angry because wanted to avenge his father but he does not follow through with his desires. Hamlet then begins to fire up with anger and motivation for revenge against Claudius.

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He sought to avenge the death of his father, thus giving his father justice. However, Hamlet’s quest for vengeance did not allow him to remain a righteous character, but instead turned him into a villain. Claudius who is seen as the villain is only responsible for the death of one person, while Hamlet is responsible for numerous. He kills three himself, causes Ophelia to commit suicide, arranges the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, forces Claudius to drink poison even though he is already dying from a poisoned sword wound. So while Hamlet is justified in wanting to extract revenge for the death of his father he was not justified in the amount of deaths that he caused either directly or indirectly.

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