William Shakespeare tells the tale of a troubled man in his masterpiece, Hamlet. Imagine your beloved father dying and your mother marrying his brother shortly after. You’re left to grieve on your own. Instead of consoling you, your mother and uncle have a wedding and begin to share the same bed. This is what Hamlet suffers through in the play. He is depressed and suicidal as indicated in his infamous quote, “To be, or not to be: that is the question.” (3.1.57). However, while many may choose to carry on after the death of a loved one, Hamlet chose to hold on to his sorrow and pretended to be mad so he can know the truth behind his father’s death. Hamlet’s tragic life is not the cause for his madness. Hamlet drives himself to the brink of insanity …show more content…
He does this to see whether Claudius is guilty of his father’s murder or not. When the prologue actor enters, Hamlet says, “We shall know by this fellow. The players cannot keep counsel. They’ll tell all.”(3.2.130-131). Hamlet says that actors cannot keep secrets. They tell everything they know without thinking it over. Hamlet cannot be an actor because he is secretive. He is witty enough to know what to tell and what to keep to himself. In the past scene, he made Horatio swear to keep his secret. He did not want anyone knowing about his encounter with his father’s ghost. This shows that Hamlet can not be acting mad. Consequently, he believes that one should not perform a role, but actually become the person they 're pretending to be. This shows in his stunt when instead of pretending to be mad, he becomes mad in all …show more content…
In the third act of the play, the dead king 's ghost appears before Hamlet again. However, this time only Hamlet sees him. When the ghost appears, Hamlet and his mother have the following conversation, “HAMLET: How is it with you, lady? GERTRUDE: Alas, how is ’t with you, That you do bend your eye on vacancy And with th ' incorporal air do hold discourse? Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep, And, as the sleeping soldiers in th ' alarm, Your bedded hair, like life in excrements, Starts up and stands on end. O gentle son, Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look? HAMLET: On him, on him! Look you, how pale he glares! His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones, Would make them capable. (to GHOST) Do not look upon me, Lest with this piteous action you convert My stern effects. Then what I have to do Will want true color—tears perchance for blood. GERTRUDE: To whom do you speak this? HAMLET: Do you see nothing there? GERTRUDE:Nothing at all, yet all that is I see. HAMLET: Nor did you nothing hear? GERTRUDE: No, nothing but ourselves” (3.4.132-153). In the midst of Hamlet’s confrontation with his mother, the ghost appears and stares at him. Hamlet breaks down and tells the ghost not to look at him that way unless he wants him to cry instead of being powerful enough to get his revenge. While this happens, Gertrude holds to the belief that her son has gone mad as she watches him talk to himself. Gertrude can not see or hear the
Hamlet's Despair in Act 1, Scene 5 After the conversation between Hamlet and the ghostly figure of his father, the king, in Act 1, Scene 2, Hamlet falls into a manic state of despair, attempting to grasp everything his father had told him from beyond the grave. Hamlet states, "Ay, thou poor ghost, whiles memory holds a seat / In this distracted globe" (1.5.96-97). In this metaphorical sentence, the "memory" of hamlets father is replaced by a "poor ghost" Hamlet is unable to see his father as the strong ruler he once was, now his father's memory has been replaced by the knowledge of Claudius the former king's brother murdering him to obtain both his kingdom and Gertrude, Hamlet's mother. Hamlet's father is now forced to "hold a seat in this distracted
One of the first things Hamlet addresses is his sadness to the current situation: “O, that this too too sullied flesh would melt, Thaw and resolve itself into a dew, Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon 'gainst
In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Hamlet struggles to cope with his late father’s death and his mother’s quick marriage. In Act 1, Scene 2, King Claudius, Queen Gertrude, and Hamlet are all introduced. Hamlet has just finished publicly speaking with his mom and the new king, and after he is interrupted by his good friend Horatio, who reveal the secret about King Hamlet’s ghost. Hamlet’s soliloquy is particularly crucial because it serves as his initial characterization, revealing the causes of his anguish. Hamlet’s grief is apparent to the audience, as he begins lamenting about the uselessness of life.
He tells him that he was actually murdered by his uncle, Claudius, who is now the king. After Hamlet received this news he makes Horatio and Marcellus swear to him that no matter what he does or says they will know he is not mad. “Here,
Having your father die is bad enough, but to have your mother marry your uncle, within a few weeks of your father’s death? Then to see the ghost of your dead father. That would drive anyone a little insane, but maybe not to the extent that everyone thought Hamlet was acting. Hamlet is torn between acting sane and letting everyone else see him as insane.
In Hamlet, Shakespeare uses many references to sanity and insanity. Throughout the play, Hamlet goes back and forth between sanity and insanity, whether pretending to be insane just to mess with those he does not like or to save himself from getting in trouble. Hamlet is actually one of the smartest characters in the play, which is why he can pull off acting crazy so well. Shakespeare uses this idea of sanity and insanity to help the plot change and take a different directions. One of the most discussed topics of the Hamlet is whether Hamlet is insane or if he was just pretending the whole time.
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell. I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune” (Hamlet 196,
Gertrude asks, “O me, what hast thou done?” (Act 3, scene 4) and Hamlet replies, “Nay, I know not. Is it the king?” (Act 3, scene 4). Hamlet’s response shows his reckless behavior where he acts without thinking.
A select few scholars believe that Hamlet is not pretending to be mad, but in reality is insane. Hamlet reveals his insanity through his strange behavior toward others. Dr. Simon A. Blackmore claims, “The Real or Assumed Madness of Hamlet” in Shakespearean Online that Hamlet is insane because of the fact that he is able to see a ghost while others cannot (215). Dr. Blackmore in The Real or Assumed... also asserts that in Act III, scene IV, the instance when Hamlet is in Gertrude chamber and Hamlet states to Gertrude that he see a ghost.
What would one expect the personality of a man whose father was murdered by his uncle, who becomes his step-father? The personality in question points to Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark—who William Shakespeare depicts in his play “Hamlet.” A character analysis of Hamlet reveals that through his internal dialogue, his interpretation of his father 's murder, and his actions, his traits—bitterness, depression, and anger—emerge. Scholars have studied Hamlet for decades, and most have concluded that Hamlet 's personality indicated insanity. However, after observing Hamlet 's actions, his actions throughout the play do not resemble those of an insane person.
He uses his deception of madness to make this sound like mad ramblings to everyone else, but he is truly asking these questions and wondering about the ins and outs of how life truly works, and what it all means. So Hamlet basically acts insane to cover up the seriousness of these questions he is seeking the answers to. “But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,/Could force his soul so to his own conceit,/That from her working all his visage wann’d,/ Tears in his eyes, distraction in’s aspect,/ A broken voice, and his
Throughout the play Hamlet most of the conflict comes from Hamlet's internal struggle of deciding whether he should trust the words and appearance of the ghost of his father. Just like a student trying to finish an essay, his procrastination has made him more eager to carry out the act but that dire obligation he so badly wants to fulfill can't be done without any sound proof that he strives to find. This comes to show Hamlet's inability to trust the Ghost because he didn't believe that the existence of the ghost of his father would be possible, he believed that the apparition might be a devil trying to lure him in to committing an unjustified act, and he needed to rely on Claudius’s reaction to the play to validate his trust with the Ghost. At the start of the play, Hamlet is awestruck and dubious about the Ghost because during his first meeting with the apparition, he was so stunned of the supernatural sighting that he felt skeptical if it was even possible for such an episode to happen.
Throughout the story Hamlet has conflicting views on death and the act of suicide. During the monologue in act three Hamlet is able to construct a relatable view on depression. Many would view Hamlet’s speech as delusional and melodramatic, but it hides a meaning that most can relate to. “To be, or not to be” (3.1.57) asks a greater question than “should i die or should i live.” Within Hamlet’s monologue he asks the question of “should I go forth with my actions or live with complacency.”
There are many reasons for Hamlet to truly go mad including the death of his father, his mother’s remarriage and the relationship he holds with Ophelia, leading many away from the fact that he is “not
Hamlet is one of the most memorable Shakespearean plays due to the focus on a young prince`s struggle with obeying the ghostly figure that we witness briefly on stage. The ghost is certainly an important figure in shaping the outcome of this revenge tragedy. Thus, we must ponder what is the ghost and how it can be interpreted in a plethora of ways. It is arguably seen as the spirit of Hamlet`s father, a figment of his imagination and being Shakespeare himself. Therefore, this essay will examine these potential answers to the question.