Ernest Hemingway once said, “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” Trusting one’s own mind to make sure critical information does not get out may be fairly more easy than to trust another person with it. In Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” the protagonist faces a hardship of his own on whether or not to trust himself along with those surrounding him. Since Hamlet admits that he merely acts insane, he has the ability to decide who he should and should not trust with his secret.
No matter how hard he tried, Hamlet faced times where he needed and wanted to out his ‘crazed mind’. In the first act of the play, Horatio and two guards tell Hamlet of a spirit walking through the castle grounds who looks eerily like the Old King
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He practically confesses his insanity is all for show because he says so and because he tells his best friend, Horatio, not to worry about him whatsoever. Towards the end of act 5, Hamlet again admits his insanity caused his previous actions. Rather this time, it may have been more for saving his life rather than planning to end someone else’s. Before the deadly duel against Laertes, Hamlet decides he should apologize for his actions at Ophelia’s grave and for killing Polonius. “What I have done, That might your nature, honor, and exception Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness,” he pleads. (Shakespeare 5.2.217-220) To be able to be more in favor of an apology from Laertes, …show more content…
Unfortunately he is unsuccessful the first time he interacts with the one person he trusted the most. After Ophelia broke his heart by listening to her brother and father, he runs into her room like a mad man and, “He took [her] by the wrist and held [her] hard. Then goes he to the length of all his arm, And, with his other hand thus o'er his brow, He falls to such perusal of [her] face As he would draw it. Long stayed he so.”(Shakespeare 2.1.87-91) Here Ophelia most likely believes Hamlet lost his mind. However, Hamlet could be deciding on whether or not to trust Ophelia with the reasoning behind his actions. She has not spoken to him in months and he does not know why, so she caused him to have an internal battle on whether or not to trust the woman he loves. Hamlet’s second breakdown had a far better outcome than the first. He was sent to visit his mom so they could talk about his actions, and so Polonius could overhear what Hamlet said. Although, Polonius got a far different outcome than from what he expected. Then when Gertrude gets into an argument with Hamlet and the ghost comes back and Hamlet freaks out. Gertrude tells Hamlet she thinks he is insane and he replies, “Ecstasy? My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time, And makes as healthful music. It is not madness That I have uttered. Bring me to the test, And I the matter will reword, which
People will do whatever they can to protect the ones they love, no matter the cost. Prince Hamlet in the William Shakespeare play, Hamlet, did exactly that, trying to shield Ophelia firstly from the court. Additionally, he didn’t even trust her father and wanted to remove her from Polonius’ influence as well. On top of that, Hamlet wanted to protect him from even himself. In the end, Hamlet wanted to keep Ophelia safe from the court, her father, and ultimately himself, despite what some may argue.
When Ophelia returns all his letters and gifts he tells her that he has never loved her and that she should “get thyself to a nunnery.” This is one example how his mood changes throughout the play. Then after all this her father, Polinous, is murdered by Hamlet. The Hamlet is sent away to England All of these actions result in her feeling such stress that she becomes insane in the end.
It is an aspect of human nature to desire the ability to take decisive action, since often the choices individuals make display their beliefs and establish self worth. When making these decisions, successful outcomes are determined by the individual’s resolve to stay committed to the decided course of action or completely abandon it. Individuals who posses this ability display confidence in their intuition have a strong sense of personal identity and self confidence. If they stray from the path of their choosing, they may often become confused, doubt their judgment, and lose sight of their goals. In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Hamlet becomes conflicted between action and inaction after learning the details of his father’s death.
In William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, Hamlet assumes the disguise of a man that has lost his mind. Hamlet uses this madness to masquerade around in such a way as to not draw attention to his true plan, to avenge his murdered father. Many readers debate as to whether Hamlet is truly mad, or whether he is fully aware of his actions and what he is doing. However, both sides of the debate can agree that Hamlet’s apparent madness is a key element of the play, Hamlet. There are many reasons as to why readers debate Hamlet’s madness.
Till I have caught her once more in mine arms.” (V, i, 253-254) Laertes and Hamlet confront one another in a grapple. In this instance, Hamlet does not think about the consequences, instead he defends himself and fights Laertes. It is evident that Laertes and Hamlet are connected by their love for Ophelia, however the obvious opposition reveals Hamlet’s ability to take real action when
This provokes him to say that god gives women one face, but they use make up to paint on another one. This quote suggest that Hamlet sees woman as naive and gullible creatures, as he sees Ophelia as nothing but an object that is owned by her father, as she is helping him with all of his dirty work. Hamlet believes that woman cannot be trusted as they have are deceiving. He also sees Ophelia as a grown women who is unable to make her own decisions. Hamlet is utterly disgusted by how feeble Ophelia is as she was following her father's scheme.
The question of whether or not Hamlet was insane is of a never-ending debate. Was he always crazy? Was he always faking it? Or was he somewhere in between? In this paper I will share three different views and provide my own interpretation of Hamlet’s sanity.
Hamlet's insane behavior is a significant part of the story because it is supposedly part of his revenge plan, but also because of the additional problems, it creates. Some have argued that his madness was indeed an act, but rather real madness that he was trying to cover up by telling people
Polonius fuels Hamlet’s paranoia by pitting his friends against him through deception to make them garner information on Hamlet’s woes in his
Hamlet before his duel with Laertes begins to tell Laertes that at the time when he insulted Laertes and fought him it was due to his own mental illness which Hamlet proclaims was “madness” (V.ii.217-219). Hamlet 's mental state is sane because he tells Laertes that the reason for is actions back then was because he had become temporarily insane. Hamlet must be sane in order to identify whether he had gone insane because if someone was insane they would not care about the actions they had done. Hamlet’s actions are not those of sane person when he murders Claudius. When Hamlet realizes it was Claudius, who was at fault for his mother’s death, he becomes enraged and stabs him with the sword that had been poisoned at the tip.
Hamlet shows a great deal of cunning, as he convinced everyone he knew that he was insane, even though he was not really, Hamlet said that he will “put an antic disposition on” [Shakespeare I, v, 171], so no one would suspect that he knows anything and check that the people who betrayed him were truly guilty, before he has his vengeance. Hamlet shows his skepticism of all information that is given to him, in case he was being fed false information or trying to trick him, Hamlet is very skeptical of Rosencrantz and
He does this to see whether Claudius is guilty of his father’s murder or not. When the prologue actor enters, Hamlet says, “We shall know by this fellow. The players cannot keep counsel. They’ll tell all. ”(3.2.130-131).
Throughout the play Hamlet most of the conflict comes from Hamlet's internal struggle of deciding whether he should trust the words and appearance of the ghost of his father. Just like a student trying to finish an essay, his procrastination has made him more eager to carry out the act but that dire obligation he so badly wants to fulfill can't be done without any sound proof that he strives to find. This comes to show Hamlet's inability to trust the Ghost because he didn't believe that the existence of the ghost of his father would be possible, he believed that the apparition might be a devil trying to lure him in to committing an unjustified act, and he needed to rely on Claudius’s reaction to the play to validate his trust with the Ghost. At the start of the play, Hamlet is awestruck and dubious about the Ghost because during his first meeting with the apparition, he was so stunned of the supernatural sighting that he felt skeptical if it was even possible for such an episode to happen.
In Act III, scene i of The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare, readers will come upon Ophelia’s soliloquy. After Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have failed to find a reason as to why Hamlet is acting in a peculiar and mad way, Claudius is persuaded by Polonius that the reason for Hamlet’s madness is the broken romance between Hamlet and Ophelia. To prove this, Claudius and Polonius plan to spy on Ophelia’s meeting with Hamlet. During their conversation, Hamlet denies ever having loved her and curses her. Ophelia is left fretting over his sanity.
In Shakespeare’s tragedy, Hamlet, there are a series of events that causes Hamlet to act abnormally. He has to deal with his father’s death, mother’s remarriage, and his lover Ophelia. However, it is often argued whether Hamlet’s madness is real or fake. Throughout the tragedy, he is over-exaggerating his madness for his plan of revenge.