How Is Hamlet Insane

Hamlet’s Hoax In the commonly known children’s story, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” by Lewis Carroll, Alice dreams herself into a world that makes no sense. A world where up means down, big is small, left is right, and sane is insane. Wonderland in Alice’s eyes appeared absurd and Alice to those in Wonderland, seemed bizarre. Upon meeting Alice, the Mad Hatter told her, “You’re entirely bonkers, but I’ll tell you a secret. All the best people are.” The Mad Hatter is alluding to the fact that insanity is defined by a society as acting and thinking different than everyone else. Everyone is a little crazy in their own way, but that doesn’t make them mentally ill. Just as Alice was considered mad to those in Wonderland, Prince

He exclaims to Polonius, “Nor what he spake, though it lacked form a little, / Was not like madness. There’s something in his soul / O’er which his melancholy sits on brood” (3. 1. 177-179). Claudius implies that he thinks Hamlet is ‘brooding’ something behind this madness and is not falling for it. Claudius’s suspicions are confirmed by Hamlet’s rash behavior during the play. Instead of letting the actors say their lines while Horatio watched the King’s expression, Hamlet decides to commentate the play. He says, “ O, but she’ll keep her word,” and, “He poisons him i’th’ garden for his estate.” (3. 2. 255, 287). Hamlet gives himself away with these comments, because he is directly speaking out about Claudius’s crime and his mother’s unfaithfulness. These comments not only affirm Claudius’s previous suspicion of Hamlet’s motives, but cause Claudius to form a hoax of his own to get rid of Hamlet and his ‘madness’ for good. Claudius decides to send his nephew to England because he recognizes that Hamlet isn’t mentally crazy just revenge crazy.

Hamlet’s madness throughout the play was created by his intellectual and able mind as a ploy to ultimately get him something he wanted, revenge. His craziness was not real, just as Alice’s assumed craziness in Wonderland was not real. As the Cheshire cat says, “We’re all mad here,” we’re all a little crazy. All the characters in Hamlet are a little crazy and Hamlet’s intentional craziness is mistaken for real insanity when actually he is just as sane as everyone