A major controversy that has divided the literature community for hundreds of years is the debate of whether Hamlet, in William Shakespeare’s well known tragedy Hamlet, is feigning madness or is actually mad. It can be proven though textual evidence that Hamlet is not insane and his feigned insanity is just a ruse to distract those around him from seeing his superior conscience, given to him though the late King of Denmark, which makes him more aware than the average citizen. The higher sense of consciousness separates Hamlet from the others because it makes him a thinker instead of a follower. This can be seen in his interactions with other characters and how his feigned insanity affects Ophelia, who is also a thinker.
Hamlet’s feigned madness can be exemplified in his interactions
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An illustration of this can be seen in when he says “As I perchance hereafter shall think meet/ To put an antic disposition on” (1.5 166-180). As he is speaking with the late king of Denmark’s ghost, he tells Horatio that he will be feigning madness to put on an act for the Claudius. This subsequently shows the reader that Hamlet is trying to distract other characters, who do not have the same superior knowledge given to him, with his madness. This awareness of superior knowledge differentiates Hamlet and Horatio from the rest due to the fact they have more knowledge. Knowledge makes them more experienced and less ignorant to the facts they are given about the usurped late King Hamlet. However, he can’t tell everyone what he has heard because he is paralyzed by the actions required of his late father. And so when he says “I essentially am not in madness/ But mad in craft” (3.4 187-188), he is saying to the Gertrude, his mother, that he is not actually crazy, however the thoughts in head to resolve his father’s last will are making him wild. He cannot decide what to do about the will