Mental Illness In Hamlet

In the play Hamlet, written by Shakespeare, the story is told of Prince Hamlet. Hamlet is the main character, the supposedly 30 year old protagonist is the Prince of Denmark. This Prince is witty and sarcastic, always presenting comebacks and complex ways to insult someone. The play starts off with a death, King Hamlet’s death. As the scene goes on Queen Gertrude marries the new king, King Claudius, King Hamlet’s brother… Prince Hamlet’s uncle (Shakespeare). During the rest of the play, Hamlets moods seem to jump up and down, from a very manic mood to suicidal thoughts. After reading the play, and getting to understand more about Bipolar Disorder, more about Hamlet, and ruling out other disorders such as Major Depressive Disorder, and Anxiety Disorder, Hamlet has been
The main reason Hamlet is being diagnosed with Bipolar I and not Schizophrenia is because Schizophrenia is what you go to when you can rule out all other Disorders, but in this case Bipolar I Disorder can’t be entirely out ruled (Abnormal Psychology). Hamlet isn’t the only character in the play that saw and heard the ghost, which is why the ghost being an auditory hallucination is being ruled out, and so is Schizophrenia. If Hamlet was the only one that heard the ghost, and it was an auditory hallucination then it could still be used to identify this as Bipolar I. Auditory hallucinations happen with Manic Episodes and on a scale from 1-4, auditory hallucinations qualify as a 4 “Severe with psychotic features” and usually these auditory hallucinations are “mood-congruent psychotic features”(DSM- IV 413-414). Which clarifies a lot since Hamlets mood has been terrible due to his father’s death and all his mother’s remarriage. The symptoms for Bipolar I Disorder could be generally different for each individual, but individuals usually experience one or more Major Depressive episodes, these episodes are not superimposed on Schizophrenia Disorder