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Hamlet Gone Mad Analysis

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“Have I gone Mad?” asked the Hatter (Carroll Alice In Wonderland). In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the main character Hamlet has to jump a lot of hurdles, including his mental health just like the Hatter. His father dies, his mother remarries his uncle, his friends betray him, and on top of all of that, everyone questions whether or not he is crazy. Hamlet’s craziness is visible because he speaks to ghosts, he can kill without remorse, and his many self-doubting soliloquies. The first piece of evidence that shows Hamlet is crazy is that he talks to ghosts. While talking to Gertrude during scene 3, Hamlet begins to yell at the ghost of his father. However, Gertrude cannot see or hear the ghost. “ ‘This the very coinage of your brain. This bodiless creation ecstasy/is very cunning in’” (Shakespeare III. iv. …show more content…

After he has slain Polonius, Hamlet talks to his mother about what he has just done. “‘I must be cruel only to be kind. Thus bad begins and worse remains behind’” (Shakespeare. III. iv. 181-182). Hamlet believes that God wanted him to kill. He feels no remorse for killing Polonius and tells his mother it is for the best that he is dead. While Hamlet’s ability to not feel remorse may seem strange, there are other people who experience it. Diagnosed Sociopath, M. E. Thomas, expresses her lack of emotional connection in her article “Confessions of a Sociopath”. Within the article she says, “ Remorse is alien to me. I have a penchant for deceit. I am generally free of entangling and irrational emotions” (Thomas). This description of a sociopath’s feeling allows us to link Hamlet to being mentally unstable and crazy. Not only does he lack remorse after causing the death of four people, but he also fails to have normal emotional ties with other characters. Even though Hamlet lacks many of the same things as a sociopath, there is still more evidence pointing towards his

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