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Shakespeare's Hamlet: The Reason Behind His Madness

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The Reason Behind His Madness Hamlet gets himself into an utterly dire situation as his madness is totally self caused and entirely avoidable. He chooses his own fate when he is wrapped up in the idea of destroying his uncle to avenge his father. The thought of carrying out this revenge drives him to actually become mad and ruin almost all of his ties of friendship and his love for Ophelia. Hamlet’s demise, and the demise of loved ones around him, is self-inflicted and self-destructive. In the play of Hamlet, Hamlet, the main character, is the son of the King that has just recently died and Hamlet’s mother quickly thereafter remarried the Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius. There is a night that comes, where Hamlet is visited by the ghost of his deceased …show more content…

This plan hints towards a little bit of his self-inflicted madness taking over. What he wants to do, which he also discusses with his childhood friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, is that at the play, that will be held for them, the King and royal family, he will have one of the players recite a speech he came up with to try and draw a reaction out of Claudius. -”Which I have told thee of my father’s death: I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot, Even with the very comment of thy soul Observe mine uncle; if his occulted guilt Do not itself unkennel in one speech, it is damned ghost that we have seen And my imaginations are as foul As Vulcan’s stithy. Give him heedful note; For I mine eyes will rivet to his face, And after we will both our judgements join In censure of his seeming” (Hamlet III,ii. 78-88). The reaction, to Hamlet, will prove that Claudius is in a guilty state of mind and is actually responsible for the Death of the prior king, Hamlet’s father. Once the speech is recited, the King reacts in just the way that Hamlet expected and flees from the theatre shouting, “Give me some light: away!” (Hamlet III,ii. 273). This just fuels the madness of Hamlet because now he feels he has reasonable motive to carry out the murder of

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