Hamlet's Madness

In the Shakespearean play, the protagonist, Hamlet is said to have gone mad by the other characters. Many of those that come in contact with the main character believe that he has gone crazy, including his own mother. It appears that all of the characters believing Hamlet is deranged have some form of connection to the current king, Claudius. I think that Hamlet’s bizarre behavior is a ploy, the cunning man does not want others to view him as a threat; Hamlet hopes to investigate his father’s death and form a plan to enact his revenge. Due to the fact that only people with a connection to the King believe that Hamlet has gone mad, I suspect that Hamlet’s madness is an act of dramatics rather than a true change in mental state. Hamlet desires

When speaking to the Kind and to the mother of whom he accuses, the King’s henchman says “I will be brief, your noble son is mad. Mad call I it, for, to define true madness, What is ‘t but to be nothing else but mad” II.ii.94-96. This thought is brought about after Polonius speaks with his daughter Ophelia; his daughter claims that a worrisome looking Hamlet grabbed her and continued to stare at her without speaking. This scared Ophelia which agonized her father. Hamlet also effectively convinces Polonius of his madness by accusing him of being a fishmonger, speaking of the procreation of maggots on a dead dog, and pretending not to recognize Polonius. I am certain that Hamlet had prepared for this conversation, he knew exactly who Polonius was and by using such rash and insulting adjectives he did not sound very high-class creating the image that he has gone

Controversially, there are many people in the play who have little connection to Claudius. It seems that these individuals do not believe Hamlet has gone mad which makes me believe that the change in psyche is a plan to strike fear into King Claudius. Hamlet and his best friend Horatio are with one another quite often and the protagonist’s friend never views him as mad. The partnership experiences indescribable events such as seeing the ghost together. Also, Hamlet notifies Horatio of his desire to murder the King and the sneaky idea to recreate the murder of his father via a play while watching King Claudius’ reaction III.ii.49-67. Horatio is around Hamlet while he speaks to the ghost and hears the devious plot to murder Claudius, yet he never concludes that Hamlet is mad. King Claudius states that many of the citizens of Denmark love Hamlet; this is shown with the players cooperation to Hamlet. He acts them to act out some extraordinary things when reenacting the murder of his father. I think it is noteworthy that the players never question Hamlet’s crazy ideas and how he wants them to act. Neither of the players viewed Hamlet as mad which makes me believe that he actually acted fairly reasonable around strangers which is not a result of madness. In this Shakespearean play, King Hamlet was murdered by his brother