Madness And Irrational Behavior In Shakespeare's Hamlet
In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the delusion of madness and irrational behavior contributes largely to the development of the character Hamlet. Following the death of his father, Hamlet decides to inspect how his father passed away. The clearest way to processed is to act helplessly insane. With numerous events of deranged encounters, Hamlet portrays this as a reasonable behavior.
The first case of Hamlet’s impersonation as a madman begins when he races to see his previous girlfriend, Ophelia. Greeting her with “No hat upon his head, his stockings fouled,/ Ungartered, and down-gyved to his ankle,/ Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other” (p.79). Hamlet’s ragged and eccentric behavior causes Ophelia to become frightened and rush to inform her father of this bizarre behavior, thus igniting him into the role of an insane man. However, his appearance is only one of the few irrational behaviors given by the character Hamlet throughout the play.
Not only does Hamlet deceive people by his appearance, but also with his play on
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By showing up to Ophelia in an unorderly fashion, Hamlet is able to enforce the space between the two and frighten her enough to keep her from checking in on him. Next, with his fiddle on words, Hamlet is able to inform Polonius that he knows what is being planned and succumb to it. Thus making Hamlet’s madness and irrational behaviors practical and important to the play and all of its entirety. Hamlet’s daunting appearance and dark twist on words, causes him to be thought of as demented. Believing the perfect way to continue with his search was to fake being insane and draw attention away from his investigation of his father’s death. With a further understanding of the character that one can assume that Hamlet’s desire to unearth what happened to his father lead to his false case of
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