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Is Hamlet Insane Essay

1082 Words5 Pages

Jackie Dowdle
Mrs. Duke
English 4/2nd hour 17 February 2023
Is Hamlet Insane?
When the play opens, Hamlet, the prince of Denmark is grieving his recently deceased father, King Hamlet. Hamlet soon learns that his father may have been murdered and swears to avenge his death. Hamlet declares he will act insane to get close to the murderer, new King of Denmark Claudius, who has also entered into a incestious relationship with Hamlet’s mother. However, as the story goes on, Hamlet's actions become increasingly erratic. Observers are forced to ask, is Hamlet acting or truly insane?. Hamlet speaks with brevity, schemes, and yet he is often found making counterintuitive decisions to what is sane, acting erratically with Ophelia, debating his suicide, …show more content…

Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!” (1.2.130-132). This quote is of Hamlet wishing suicide weren’t a mortal sin so he could kill himself. This proves that Hamlet, even if acting in the future, has a bad tendency towards crazed irrational actions. Then this unstable Hamlet is met with more grief and trauma as the ghost of his father appears before him in the woods and tells him the truth that he was murdered by Claudius “The serpent that did sting thy father's life now wears his crown” (1.5.39-40). Soon after this is when Hamlet swears to avenge his father and kill Claudius while acting insane to get close to him. “As I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on” …show more content…

In the future of the play by acting insane Hamlet alerts Claudius that something is up, pushes Ophelia to work against him believing he’s crazy, and gains the eyes of the king and queen, Polonius, and Hamlet's now spying friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern “There's something in his soul O'er which his melancholy sits on brood, And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose ill be some danger. Which to prevent, I have in quick determination” (3.1.165-169) Here Claudius has caught onto Hamlet already and is thinking of plans to stop him like send him to England. By acting crazy he’s made his task to kill Claudius many times more complicated yet claims he’s taking on an antic disposition even when it serves him wrong and very rarely helps his pursuit of revenge. This crazed position will get Hamlet in trouble every step of the way in the future, self sabotage doesn’t sound very

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