Hamlet Essay: the nature of insanity Hamlet is a play written by William Shakespeare, this play is inspired by a 13th-century legend called Amleth, chronicled by the Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus. Hamlet deals with topics as losing your sanity changes a person drastically and how easily the human mind is broken. And dives into the mindset of the characters that are affected by insanity. And you have to define insanity to know what it exactly it entails. According to Ryan Howes a therapist with a PhD from LA County+USC Medical Center insanity is “mental illness of such a severe nature that a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality, cannot conduct her/his affairs due to psychosis, or is subject to uncontrollable impulsive behavior.” …show more content…
He is constantly erratic and always findings ways to expose the current to what he is because he is fixated on getting revenge. He also acts violent towards the people that he knows Specifically, the scene of Polonius’s murder it shows some of the strongest evidence for Hamlet’s insanity. This scene in the play shows great levels of hysteria within Hamlet’s mind. At the beginning of the scene Hamlet is shown being extremely violent towards Gertrude; Hamlet criticizes and While against the mirror Hamlet makes Gertrude look at her herself. After this he pulls her away and wraps his arms around her neck and holds her …show more content…
After being threatened, Polonius then reveals himself behind the curtains by responding to Gertrude’s calls. Hamlet responds to Polonius by running over to him and violently stabbing him multiple times. This explosive violent nature of killing emphasizes Hamlet’s hysteria because he was unable to stop himself once he started the killing. This act of overkill shows his inability to control his emotions. After the killing he begins to calm down a little and he realizes what he has done. And then he see’s what he did to Polonius’ body and acts very sad for what did and knowing that he can’t go back because of his burst of rage caused him to do what he had done.
Hamlet is a unique character because everytime you look at Hamlet he changes. And just how we see real people change, Hamlet has this almost real authentic feel to him like his is real person in the world not a fictional one. HIs dramatic behavioral changes can be interpreted to people by many different ways and is considered an enigma to most people because they can’t get a perfect reading on him, and that make his insanity into a perfect cloak to hide his true