Hamlet's Insane Character Analysis

“O, that this too too sullied flesh would melt, Thaw and resolve itself into a dew, Or that the everlasting has not fixed, His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God, God, How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable, Seem to me all the uses of this world!” (1. 2. 133-138) These few lines goes to show my view on Hamlet being insane. There are many examples in the play that show that Hamlet is insane. His mood is always changing throughout the play. He jumps into Ophelia’s grave and fights with Laertes in her grave. He kills Polonius and then does not tell anyone where his body is. Hamlet has tons of mood swings throughout the play that goes to show his insanity. There is a sensitive and there is an insane Hamlet in the play. In the play Hamlet’s father is murdered, when he hears this news he acts furious and speaks in a crazed manner. Hamlet goes to talk about Polonius,

“Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell! / I took thee

A rat?.” (2. 4. 22.)

After he yells this out, Hamlet takes his sword and stabs it through the curtain killing who he thinks is Claudius, but is really Polonius. Gertrude is horrified and asks Hamlet what he’s done. Hamlet saying he didn’t know it wasn’t the king (3. 4. 24). The Queen Gertrude thought of his action to be rash and bloody. When Hamlet heard this he strikes back at his mother with a rude comment saying that it was almost as rash and bloody as murdering a king and marrying his brother (3. 4. 26-28). Hamlet shows some signs of insanity in these few examples. The very first quote in this paragraph goes to talk about how Hamlet is depressed about his father’s death and his mother’s remarriage. Hamlet is wishing that his flesh would melt and that he would die. Just in that one quote of Hamlet saying these things you can infer that he is insane, even in the slightest of ways. Throughout the story you see more than enough examples to prove this theory. Hamlet being insane is only one view, and that is the view I choose to