Sane Or Insane Hamlet Analysis Essay

Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, is about a young prince who wants revenge when he learns about the murder of his father. As the play begins, Hamlet’s character appears to be a normal, sane person. Moving through the acts Hamlet’s personality changes from normal to depressed. There are hints of insanity that try to convince people Hamlet is “mad”. Others might say that Hamlet is faking madness to pursue his goal of revenge. First, he sees a “ghost” that tells Hamlet who killed his father and married his mother. Was this a dream or was this real? Second, Hamlet kills more than one person to avenge his father’s death. Where these accidents or intentional? “Insanity: a legal term for mental illness of such degree

Is Hamlet Mad? Not Likely. Madness is a condition of the mind which eliminates all rational thought leaving an individual with no proper conception of what is happening around him/her. Madness typically occurs in the minds of individuals that have experienced an event or series of events that their mind simply cannot cope with and, thus, to avoid their harsh reality, they fall into a state of madness. In William Shakespeare’s masterpiece Hamlet, there is much debate around the protagonist, Hamlet, and whether or not his madness in the play was real or feigned. It was a disastrous time in the prince, Hamlet’s life as his father had just passed away, his uncle then took the kingship and wed Hamlet’s mother, then the

Death is the fire underneath the reality of madness. Death and madness coalesce with each other due to the serious impact it has on a person. The anti-hero, Hamlet, has to avenge his father’s death by putting on an antic disposition, which leads to many casualties in the play. Also, Hamlet creates a play called, The Mousetrap, in which he also tries to expose Claudius by looking at his reaction to the exact method of him killing King Hamlet. Also, Ophelia was acting normally before the scene of her father’s death. This proves that unforeseen death can cause grief and depression which in the end develops madness.

Throughout Shakespeare?s play, Hamlet, the main character, young Hamlet, is faced with the responsibility of attaining vengeance for his father?s murder. He decides to feign madness as part of his plan to gain the opportunity to kill Claudius. As the play progresses, his depiction of a madman becomes increasingly believable, and the characters around him react accordingly. However, through his inner thoughts and the apparent reasons for his actions, it is clear that he is not really mad and is simply an actor simulating insanity in order to fulfill his duty to his father.

   Hamlet's public persona is a facade he has created to carry out his ulterior motives. The outside world's perception of him as being mad is of his own design. Hamlet is deciding what he wants others to think about him. Polonius, a close confidant of the King, is the leading person responsible for the public's knowledge of Hamlet's madness. The idea that Hamlet is mad centers around the fact that he talks to the ghost of his dead father. He communicates with his dead father's ghost twice, in the presence of his friends and again in the presence of his mother. By being in public when talking to the ghost, the rumor of his madness is given substance.

In the story of Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, Hamlet’s sanity is questioned because of the relationships he had with other characters in the story. Hamlet’s relationship with the other characters did not all start off bad. Gertrude was his mother, Ophelia is the woman that he loved, and Claudius was his stepfather. Eventually over time all of them started a conflict. Hamlet didn’t just have problems with them, he had problems with himself. The problems were internally and externally with him and his Mother, Lover, and Stepfather.

In Shakespeare's play Hamlet the main character Hamlet experiences many different and puzzling emotions. He toys with the idea of killing himself and then plays with the idea of murdering others. Many people ask themselves who or what is this man and what is going on inside his head. The most common question asked about him is whether or not he is sane or insane. Although the door seems to swing both ways many see him as a sane person with one thought on his mind, and that is revenge. The first point of his sanity is while speaking with Horatio in the beginning of the play, secondly is the fact of his wittiness with the other characters and finally, his soliloquy.

The play Hamlet by William Shakespeare can be interpreted in many different ways due to its ambiguous nature. This causes for conflicting arguments and theories to be held throughout the play. One argument is whether or not Prince Hamlet is overwhelmed with madness or he uses it as a persona in order to give others a false perception of him.

Insanity, a theme explored by multiple authors in countless classic selections, has instilled itself as one of the darkest and interesting themes in the literary world. In Shakespeare’s legendary Hamlet, the audience questions the sanity of Hamlet and Ophelia constantly, as well as that of the other characters. As the story progresses, this becomes more and more relevant, bringing the reader to consider the causes and effects of the characters’ mental states on the resolution of the literary work.

Was Hamlet insane? Scholars have debated this question ever since Shakespeare presented this play to the public. Although I am not a scholar, I believe that there is enough evidence in the play to suggest Hamlet had been sane. He may have been depressed and angry however this was due to the treachery and betrayal contaminating Denmark. The insanity act had been an instrument to allow Hamlet the freedom to achieve his goal of revenge.

In Hamlet, he seems to be mad, but there is a question that everyone asks when reading or watching this play “was it, or was it not true that Hamlet was faking his insanity, really suffering, or maybe even both.” First, this is what insanity is: insanity is acting crazy, but not knowing that they’re acting crazy. Also, it’s going through a lot of stress at the same time causing you to act stranger then a normal person. Hamlet was not totally insane. It doesn’t fit.

As stated by Ms. Turk, "If a person in a rational state of mind decides to act crazy, to abuse the people around him regardless of whether he loves those people or hates them, and to give free expression to all his antisocial thoughts, when he starts to carry out those actions, its it possible to say at what point the stops pretending and starts actually being crazy?". In Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the way others interpret Hamlet's behavior is different from the way Hamlet views himself.

William Shakespeare, in the tragedy Hamlet, designed two characters who exhibit symptoms of madness: Ophelia and the prince. Hamlet states his own madness as intentional, purposeful, for the carrying out of the ghost’s admonition. But does Hamlet’s pretended insanity actually touch on real, actual insanity from time to time, or is it consistent?

As stated by Ms. Turk, “If a person in a rational state of mind decides to act crazy, to abuse the people around him regardless of whether he loves those people or hates them, and to give free expression to all his antisocial thoughts, when he starts to carry out those actions, its it possible to say at what point the stops pretending and starts actually being crazy?”. In Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the way others interpret Hamlet’s behavior is different from the way Hamlet views himself.

Hamlet is a play about a man who has had a father killed by his uncle,