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Insanity In Shakespeare's Hamlet Still Relevant Today

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Hamlet, the play by Shakespeare that was published in 1603 has many timeless attributes to it. Hamlet is a tragedy ridden with love, drama, revenge, and much more. The play is all about a young prince, Hamlet, who is seeking revenge for his father’s death. After King Hamlet’s intentional murder, his wife, Gertrude, married King Hamlet's brother Claudius. The drama comes in when Prince Hamlet gets a visit from his deceased father. In this meeting Prince Hamlet’s father tells him that he was intentionally poisoned by his brother Claudius. Prince Hamlet then spends the rest of the play trying to seek revenge against his former uncle turned step-father. Along his path of revenge many lives are lost. Many themes such as madness, greed, revenge, and consequence transcend through time and make Hamlet still relevant today. …show more content…

Throughout the play, Prince Hamlet is so in love with a girl named Ophelia. In act III scene iv Polonius is accidentally murdered by Prince Hamlet. The murder of Ophelia’s father send her into a state of madness. Ophelia begins to act very strange due to her madness. Ophelia’s madness transpired into a depression that eventually led her to killing herself. This look at madness is relevant to today because people still do this today. Many people do not know how to deal with the death of another, let alone a father or family member. Ophelia dealt with her situation by committing suicide which is sadly the rout that many take

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798 Words | 4 Pages

Emily Dickinson once said “Much madness is divinest Sense— To a discerning Eye—“. This type of madness can be found in the play “Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Though many characters show madness throughout the play, Ophelia’s madness is the most prevalent. Ophelia has good reason for this irrational behavior because of the trauma she has gone through. First, her boyfriend dumps her, then he calls her vulgar names, and lastly, he kills her father.

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732 Words | 3 Pages

Hamlet is a story about revenge and power, due to the recent death of the King of Denmark. The following events include madness, which leads to Hamlet killing King Claudius’ advisor, Polonius. Word about the death of his father got to Laertes who was in England. Laertes returned to Denmark to find his sister distraught and drove to madness. Shortly after his return, Ophelia is found dead by the cause of drowning.

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1154 Words | 5 Pages

When Ophelia returns all his letters and gifts he tells her that he has never loved her and that she should “get thyself to a nunnery.” This is one example how his mood changes throughout the play. Then after all this her father, Polinous, is murdered by Hamlet. The Hamlet is sent away to England All of these actions result in her feeling such stress that she becomes insane in the end.

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Ophelia goes mad throughout the story. She is overwhelmed by the loss of her father and the rejection of Hamlet. Her character is seen spiraling down a dark path that also ends in death. Ophelia is depicted as not having control over her actions; speaking and acting erratically. While Hamlet is speaking erratically and behaving oddly, he still maintains control over his actions and movement throughout the story.

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567 Words | 3 Pages

Hamlet is a powerful story of love, life, revenge, and death. The themes within the play are written to live on for eternity. It is difficult to fully and accurately represent a play as great as this one. The movie that we watched in class did not wholly represent the wonders and the magnitude of the themes within Shakespeare’s work.

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1234 Words | 5 Pages

Ophelia was the daughter of polonius, the love interest of hamlet who was brutally torn up mentally throughout the novel. At the beginning of the novel all was well for her as well, her boyfriend was off at college and she was perfectly fine at home with her father. It was until her father took away a note from hamlet to her that things started going downhill. She was a weak person not like hamlet who when faced with injustice takes thing into his own hands to seek justice or revenge. She was a quite simple girl who had a gentler soul.

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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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1124 Words | 5 Pages

The character of Hamlet is expressed as a protagonist. His irritated attitude towards Claudius in scene 2 of act 1 leaves the audience with a clear first impression of his nature. He is deceitful of the king, his uncle Claudius who is now the ruler of Denmark after his brothers “death”, and disgusted of his mother marrying his uncle. Hamlet is an example of someone who has compromised his happiness, in order to avenge his father’s murder.

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586 Words | 3 Pages

Hamlet by William Shakespeare is the story of the Prince of Denmark who is struggling to deal with the death of his father and the remarriage of his mother to his uncle. After being visited by the ghost of his dead father, Hamlet becomes obsessed with revenge. Throughout Hamlet, the prince is grief stricken by the loss of his father and as the play goes on his thoughts and behaviors grow insane. Hamlet’s insanity began with the death of his father, King Hamlet. This traumatic event is the start of his fall into madness, as he feels grief and a desire for revenge.

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1155 Words | 5 Pages

Hamlet One of Shakespeare’s famous play such as Hamlet is a tragedy involving several different themes which we still deal with daily. Many themes that occur throughout the play is revenge, madness, mortality and deceitful people. In the beginning of the play, the first theme that takes place is revenge. Hamlet encounters his father’s spirit whom tells him that his father was murdered unusually and that only revenge will set it free.

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745 Words | 3 Pages

But Ophelia also had some madness of her own that caused her suicide. Ophelia was also grieving over her father's, Polonius, death. Ophelia's death results from Hamlet's madness and his telling Ophelia that she needs to go to a nunnery. The cause of Ophelia's suicide was mainly from Hamlet's madness.

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1267 Words | 6 Pages

Hamlet, one of the world’s most popular revenge tragedies, is a play written between 1599 and 1601 by renown playwright William Shakespeare. It tells a story of the royal family of Denmark plagued by corruption and schism. Prince Hamlet, the protagonist, embarks on a journey of incessant brooding and contemplation on whether to avenge his father’s death. In Hamlet’s soliloquy, at the end of Act 2, Scene 2, he asks himself, ‘Am I a coward?’ (II.ii.523) after failing to carry out revenge.

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1427 Words | 6 Pages

In “Hamlet” a tragedy written by William Shakespeare, the death of a character is an occurring event. William Shakespeare uses imagery and allusion to demonstrate the result of manipulation from other characters upon Ophelia, daughter of Polonius, and leading up to her death. Her death was not the consequence of disgraceful actions of her own, but rather by the involvement of others and their influence on her life. Hamlet’s apparent rejection of her love and her father’s personal vindictive leads up to her simple-minded state, entering a world of madness. She has now gone mad, singings nonsense songs and giving people flowers that she has picked from the garden.

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1305 Words | 6 Pages

By the end of the play, Shakespeare shows how all of the characters attempt to get their revenge and how revenge does not always work out for the best. Hamlet is the main character of the play and it seems as if everything he does is based off his wanting to revenge Claudius for killing

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412 Words | 2 Pages

In Hamlet, by William Shakespeare the famous play contains madness throughout the plot and through the characters which is an important trait throughout the play. As the madness begins it spreads and affects the actions of all the characters. Madness affected Ophelia most, because all the men who were the only reason she lived had been taken from her life in some sort of way, this led her to the decision to take her own life. The madness spread so easily for example, Hamlet and his father, the queen and her need for affection. Vengeance and death is an encompassing theme shown when Hamlet tried to kill Claudius, acting on his impulsive instincts he killed Polonius instead and his vengeful action resulted in the eventual death of Ophelia.

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