Hamlet Madness Essay

What is madness? Is it chaos, or is it lunacy, perhaps? In literature, madness and mental illness span across many fields of discussion. William Shakespeare strongly explores the topic, especially in his tragedy, Hamlet, and in his Sonnet 147. The former tells a story of the Prince of Denmark, Hamlet, who must avenge his father’s death and falls into a dark mental state. The latter reflects a miserable and ill state of mind, incurable and without hope. The two selections both express how madness corresponds with death thoughts and how madness can make one speak out of line. However, though both describe how love can provoke madness, different kinds of love can stimulate different modes of the mental illness. Shakespeare relates madness with suicidal thoughts. The playwright composed a famous soliloquy in Hamlet beginning with the words, “To be or not to be....” (3.1, 64-98). The monologue discusses how Hamlet contemplates suicide and relates dying to sleeping (68-72), making it seem desirable. Similarly, Shakespeare’s Sonnet 147 clearly states, “Desire is death, which physic did not except/
Not only does Hamlet himself exhibit such dialogue, but his love interest, Ophelia, displays such strange acts. She utters, “Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny” (4.5, 189) in an odd song of sorrow for her father, Polonius. As indicated in the reference notes, she distributes flowers that could be imaginary to those in the room (204-209) and sings, “For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy” (210). Needless to say, these actions are bizarre and out of line, for they stem from a newfound madness inside of her. As with the sonnet, it states, “My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,/ At random from the truth vainly expressed” (11-12). In other words, the speaker thinks like a maniac and foolishly speaks lies. Both Ophelia and the sonneteer represent madness through strange