Irreversible Insanity Relatability In William Shakespeare's Hamlet

Irreversible Insanity Relatability is key in growing to like a character and Shakespeare demonstrates this beautifully through every person. Sensing some empathy for everyone, we find that following the unfolding events can create suspense that causes our own palms to sweat too. We twist our minds alongside theirs in order to see where they’re coming from and truly feel what they are. William Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1603) focuses on the psychological consequences that the events cause in characters such as Hamlet, Ophelia, and Claudius. Growing to understand them on a deeper level, we gain a sense of empathy for them due to their mental struggles. As we delve deeper into the plot of Hamlet, there’s an innumerable amount of events that can mentally harm all of the characters in different ways. Coping mechanisms

Hamlet, our main character, shows us anger; his suicidal ideation, apathy, indifference, and habit changes are all forms of responding to traumatic events. He internally feels an unconscious desire for his mother, and a hatred for King Claudius as Gertrude grieves in a way that didn’t align with Hamlet. This makes him the most similar to Laertes, as Polonius raised him in a way that shows the lack of boundaries and trust that, similarly, Hamlet unknowingly had with his mother. Polonius states, “You shall do marvelous wisely, good Renaldo, before you visit him, to inquire of his behavior,” (Shakespeare 2.1.3). This would set up the scene for the downfall of these characters as we see that their minds overrode their conscious actions that they had lost control over. When we consider each character at the beginning and end of this play, they were all impacted negatively—some more than others—by their psychological thought processes. Representing femininity, Ophelia was driven to the point of death that was deemed suicide by the