Does Hamlet Really Go Insane?

William Shakespeare tells the tale of a troubled man in his masterpiece, Hamlet. Imagine your beloved father dying and your mother marrying his brother shortly after. You’re left to grieve on your own. Instead of consoling you, your mother and uncle have a wedding and begin to share the same bed. This is what Hamlet suffers through in the play.

Before the “Queen’s Closet” scene, Claudius is telling Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that he is sending Hamlet to England because he thinks Hamlet’s insanity is risky. Polonius also tells the king that he is going to spy on Hamlet and Gertrude. Polonius tells Gertrude to tell Hamlet off and stop acting crazy. After the scene Gertrude lies for Hamlet and tells Claudius that when he stabbed Polonius through the curtain he yelled “rat rat!” Hamlet also goes away with Polonius’s body and hides it.

Has Hamlet gone mad while in his Act? Throughout Acts I through III of “Hamlet” written by William Shakespeare, it becomes apparent that Hamlet has gone mad while in his act. His erratic behaviour and irrational thoughts are evident in his interactions with other characters, especially those close to him. It can also be seen that his father's death has left a deep impression on his mental health leaving him to make irrational decisions leading him further into madness.

Insanity is an idea that has been examined for a long time in numerous mediums such as films, music, plays, and even works of literature. William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” is no exception to that rule. Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most complex characters, and many scholars have been debating for centuries whether or not Hamlet is truly insane, or whether there is a particular reason for his odd behavior. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Hamlet merely pretends to be mad but in reality is sane.

In the play “Hamlet” the main character, Hamlet, is portrayed as a madman. However, in the play, Hamlet believes he is faking his madness. This prompts the question of whether or not he is faking his madness. This decision is left up to the reader to interpret. In the play Hamlet starts his downward spiral by pretending to be crazy, however pretending to be crazy eventually drove him to real madness as by the end of the play he had lost his mind.

In Hamlet, Shakespeare uses many references to sanity and insanity. Throughout the play, Hamlet goes back and forth between sanity and insanity, whether pretending to be insane just to mess with those he does not like or to save himself from getting in trouble. Hamlet is actually one of the smartest characters in the play, which is why he can pull off acting crazy so well. Shakespeare uses this idea of sanity and insanity to help the plot change and take a different directions. One of the most discussed topics of the Hamlet is whether Hamlet is insane or if he was just pretending the whole time.

Having your father die is bad enough, but to have your mother marry your uncle, within a few weeks of your father’s death? Then to see the ghost of your dead father. That would drive anyone a little insane, but maybe not to the extent that everyone thought Hamlet was acting. Hamlet is torn between acting sane and letting everyone else see him as insane.

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

“Man pleaded innocent by reason of insanity for the murder of his mother”(Gross). Although the case of the man murdering his mother is not entirely similar to what Hamlet does they do share some similarities. In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet , Shakespeare uses the idea of a someone murdering one of their own family members in his play. In Hamlet the once ruler of Denmark ,king Hamlet, is long dead before the play begins with everyone thinking his cause of death was from the bite of a snake This is proven to be a lie however, when Ghost of king Hamlet visits his son Hamlet and reveals to him that his true killer is Hamlet’s uncle ,the new king of Denmark, Claudius. The play then follows Hamlet as he tries to take revenge for his father’s death.

Hamlet, who is the main protagonist in the play, is easily one of the most complicated characters in the play. Everyone that reads the play debates if Hamlet is actually crazy or if it is actually a big giant act in front of people he does not really trust. Time moved too fast for Hamlet during the play only a little under two months after his father’s death his mother got remarried to his uncle and his uncle took over the kingdom. Shortly after the marriage and the coronation the late king’s ghost appears before Hamlet when he tells the guards he wants to see it. The ghost tells Hamlet of his murder and Hamlet declares that he will exact revenge for 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.

What would one expect the personality of a man whose father was murdered by his uncle, who becomes his step-father? The personality in question points to Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark—who William Shakespeare depicts in his play “Hamlet.” A character analysis of Hamlet reveals that through his internal dialogue, his interpretation of his father 's murder, and his actions, his traits—bitterness, depression, and anger—emerge. Scholars have studied Hamlet for decades, and most have concluded that Hamlet 's personality indicated insanity. However, after observing Hamlet 's actions, his actions throughout the play do not resemble those of an insane person.

He uses his deception of madness to make this sound like mad ramblings to everyone else, but he is truly asking these questions and wondering about the ins and outs of how life truly works, and what it all means. So Hamlet basically acts insane to cover up the seriousness of these questions he is seeking the answers to. “But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,/Could force his soul so to his own conceit,/That from her working all his visage wann’d,/ Tears in his eyes, distraction in’s aspect,/ A broken voice, and his

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.