Insanity Issues In Hamlet

Conflict is present in all literary works, but how William Shakespeare molds conflict in his play, Hamlet, is astounding and ground-breaking. Hamlet is a tragedy, which means there is a plot that includes death and the ultimate downfall of the main character. Hamlet was most likely written in the early 1600’s because the first published edition was printed in 1603. This play is a story of a prince whose father is murdered by the prince 's uncle, which he later on marries the prince’s mother to become King. The prince learns of this murder of his father and seeks revenge in his father’s name.

The play Hamlet is one of the most-famous plays written by William Shakespeare. This play dealt with madness, revenge, mortality, deceit, religion, and much more. Overtime, this paper will explain why Hamlet is so upset. Hamlet first learned that it was his uncle, Claudius, who had murdered his father. “Haste me to know’t, that I, with wings as swift as meditation or the thoughts of love, May sweep to my revenge” (I.v.23).

In this passage of the play, Shakespeare wrote it with a dark tone and an emphasis on death. Shakespeare uses language to create the dark tone. However, in the towards the beginning of the play Hamlet’s personality is shown to be clinically insane but there was no violent action. Thus displaying the many dimensions of his persona. It is the word choice, the emphasis on death, that shows that Hamlet has more than this passive stance, that he is willing to do real harm.

Two central ideas of the play are madness and revenge because they are seen multiple times throughout the play. They interact and build on each other. Hamlet is mad because ophelia has passed away , Hamlet wants to fight laertes and Hamlet wants revenge on Claudius . Madness and revenge interacts and build on each other when hamlet wants revenge on Claudius for killing king hamlet. The text states “the ghost commands hamlet to avenge his death let not the royal bed of denmark act 1 scene 5 line 83.

Corruption and Power William Shakespeare utilized his novels and writings to analyze certain aspects of the human condition. There are many underlying themes that he brings to light in his works, in hopes of trying to inform his audience of some of the more common problems that face humans. Within Shakespeare’s Hamlet, one of the more common themes of the book is that of power and how it corrupts people. This theme becomes obvious after the betrayal of King Hamlet by his brother, Claudius, in order to attain the throne. Shakespeare uses this aspect of the novel to argue the fact that people will become corrupt in order to move into a position of power and once they are in said position, they will remain a corrupt individual.

Characters are a crucial element to any play because they are agents that commit actions that make up the plot, thus one cannot have a play without them. Shakespeare wrote “Macbeth” with similar characters from the play “Oedipus Rex”. For example, Macbeth and Oedipus the King are both tragic heroes that do harsh things to people but realize it at the end. In both of these written plays they contain a tragic hero that learns from his own fate and sufferings and gains a deeper understanding of empathy with other people. They accept the consequences of their doings.

Shakespeare’s use of tragedy in the play “Hamlet” is uniquely rooted in the plot of his art. Nonetheless, characters in the play portray distinctive qualities that either transpose into their demise or prowess in the plot. This way, the use of tragic flaw exists has numerous challenges in the play. Evidently, one may argue that prince Hamlet’s failure to initiate personal action mechanisms and his continuous reflection on the melancholic events is a tragic flaw within the content (Shakespeare William, 24). Probably, these events might have led to his death in the plot.

Polonius claims that Hamlet “fell into a sadness, then into a fast… and, by this declension, into the madness wherein now he raves” (2.2.156-159). Ophelia’s rejection and Hamlet’s lust for Ophelia are the sole causes of his madness. Polonius expresses that this kind of madness is very common among others as well for “in [his] youth [he] suffered much extremity for love, very near this” (2.2.206-208). However, the play depicts Polonius as inept and foolish. By hastily concluding the cause of Hamlet’s madness without regarding other tumultuous events such as King Hamlet’s death or Claudius’ marriage, Polonius seems ignorant and less credible.

The Reason Behind His Madness Hamlet gets himself into an utterly dire situation as his madness is totally self caused and entirely avoidable. He chooses his own fate when he is wrapped up in the idea of destroying his uncle to avenge his father. The thought of carrying out this revenge drives him to actually become mad and ruin almost all of his ties of friendship and his love for Ophelia. Hamlet’s demise, and the demise of loved ones around him, is self-inflicted and self-destructive. In the play of Hamlet, Hamlet, the main character, is the son of the King that has just recently died and Hamlet’s mother quickly thereafter remarried the Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius.

Corruption is a disease that over time rots the human way of thinking. In Shakespeare’s famous play Hamlet, Prince Hamlet finds out about his father’s murder, causing him to go insane and wanting to seek revenge. His new motive in life is to seek revenge, which ends up corrupting him and everyone around him. In Hamlet, Shakespeare discusses the idea of corruption in order to show how it can contaminate a person’s heart and way of life. Hamlet faces many dilemmas throughout the novel, in one scene he even debates whether it is even worth it to live anymore: “ To be or not to be—that is the question:/ Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer/ The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,/ Or take arms against a sea of trouble” (3.1.64-67).