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Schizophrenia In Hamlet

1870 Words8 Pages

In The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare, Hamlet is confronted by a Ghost that commands him to kill the king as an act of revenge. In response to the Ghost’s wishes, Hamlet decided to create an antic disposition as a technique to help him achieve the vengeance his father's apparition desires. However, the underlying purpose behind his antic disposition is to disguise his authentic schizophrenia. Exhibiting auditory hallucinations—a symptom of schizophrenia—Hamlet is the only character in the play who can hear and communicate with the Ghost. As such, he experiences various and sudden changes in behavior and emotions, experiencing extreme anxiety, followed by extreme sociopathy within a matter of a few scenes. Consumed …show more content…

Shifts in emotion is commonly seen in Hamlet numerous times throughout the play when interacting with different characters. When conversing with his mother in Act Three Scene Four, despite his mothers pleas for Hamlet to stop, Hamlet is ruthless and unceasingly shouts about his dead father and his incestuous mother and step-father. Through the continuous shouting Hamlet intensely declares, “ A murderer and a villain, A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe Of your precedent lord, a vice of kings, A cutpurse of the empire and the rule, That from a shelf the precious diadem stole, And put it in his pocket” (3.4.99-102). Hostility and anger to his mother and Claudius is evident as Hamlet accosts his mother for her ill-willed relationship wither her dead husband's brother. Anger, being the most necessary aspect of Hamlet’s diagnosis, reveals that his shifts in emotion from an emotionless state to a state of sudden animosity. “Hostility and aggression can be associated with schizophrenia” is mentioned in the Fifth Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Moreover, “aggression is more frequent for younger males” (DSM V, 101). Hamlet, a teenage boy in the Elizabethan Age, has a high probability is displaying aggression as a sign of schizophrenia, however, anger is common among a vast majority of the sufferers. Hostility, also, is what Hamlet genuinely feels, but is attempted to be disregarded as the antic

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