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How Does Shakespeare Present Mental Health In Hamlet

696 Words3 Pages

Mental health is rarely portrayed in a positive light in o=modern media let alone in literature produced four centuries ago. That being said, many of Shakespeare’s plays can be analyzed for its depiction of various social issues, including the treatment of those with mental health exceptionalities. Shakespeare’s Hamlet explores mental health and the perception of mental health through characters such as the protagonist, Hamlet, and his love interest, Ophelia. Not surprisingly, Hamlet creates a damaging image of those with mental health exceptionalities and either portrays them as props for another character’s development, going through a “phase,” or as violent villains.
To begin, in Hamlet, those with mental health exceptionalities are portrayed in a negative light and are reduced to props to stimulate the development of other characters. For example, Ophelia becomes a prop for her brother’s development after she begins to …show more content…

This is easily seen in Hamlet’s idea of how an insane person acts. For example, when Hamlet encounters Ophelia after pledging to act deranged, he begins to berate her by saying, “Get thee to a nunnery. Why would thou be a breeder of / sinners?” (3.1.123-24). Hamlet’s decision to verbally abuse Ophelia shows that his idea of “insane” is equivalent to violence. He immediately associates mental health exceptionalities with violence. Yet, the former lovers are not isolated in this instance as both Polonius and Claudius are observing the event. The presence of the two older men means that Hamlet is presenting to them this aforementioned image of a person with a mental health exceptionality. Hamlet’s actions only serve to perpetuate the stigma against those with mental health exceptionalities. Therefore, Hamlet creates a harmful image of those with mental health exceptionalities by perpetuating the stigma that they are all

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