Mental Illness Revealed In Shakespeare's Hamlet
Fact or Falsehood Hamlet sparks up a certain question that takes hold of the majority of the play; “Was Hamlet truly mad or mad in craft?” I believe he knew exactly what he was doing in order to obtain the information he was after. Mental illness runs all throughout Hamlet which is interesting because it just suddenly happens right after the deaths of some of the characters. In Hamlet we question whether he is faking his madness throughout the play and how it relates to real world events in today’s society.
People, could make the argument that Hamlet truly did become “mad” after his father's death. It could've been caused from the toll of his father’s sudden passing. This happens to many people who have experienced a tragic loss or Traumatic event in their life. He might not of been faking it and really was sick, but people did not know the effects of mental illness at that time and only thought of him as crazy were possessed. Hamlet even talks about going into madness in the play “assume some other horrible form, / Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason/and draw you into madness”(1.4.72-74). This is the proof that even hamlet believes that he can go mad if the right circumstances occur. However I believe Hamlet is smarter than we all think. He continues to get information from people time and time again throughout the play just because he acts in a different manner throughout the play. He starts off subtly after his father’s death but when he talks to his father’s ghost. Hamlet has some reason to act the way he is acting at the beginning of the play but towards the middle and end it becomes apparent that it has escalated and he has gone completely bananas. While in the midst of Hamlet’s "madness" don't mind me you guys he still attends information and regain sanity after talking with that certain person. Hamlet knows what he's doing and I feel is scamming people throughout the play. Ophelia however, goes into complete madness and loses all
control of herself. This kind of proves Hamlets point about some horrible form and going into madness because for him you could snap out of it but she got sucked into the true illness that her father's death brought upon her. We even get to see some madness and Claudius as it becomes paranoid that hamlet will eventually eventually his father's death by killing him. But all of this information him that is receiving tries to change his thoughts throughout and even contemplate not killing Claudius is that would not be a sufficient form of revenge.
People in today’s society act mentally insane to get what they want a lot now. They pretend to be sick or feel a certain way to get medications, they act crazy and beg for money, they are crazy to get attention. Like hamlet, people use insanity to get attention most of the time by acting in a different way than the rest of society. But unlike back then, doctors are pushing people towards pills and telling them they have mental illnesses because they cannot truly test them. There are some illnesses that cannot be tested and are just diagnosed off of symptoms and self report which is sad because some people could pretend to be sick just to get more medications that they were not previously available to. According to Marcia Angell, recent studies have shown that the amount of mental illnesses has gone from 1/184 people in 1987 to 1/76 in 2007. Almost two and a half times more than before. People really do act crazy and sometimes for no reason which could cause them to be able to seem a little bit off to themselves Hamlet never says why he might act strange, but pretended madness was a widely-used plot device in the revenge tragedy of Shakespeare's time. In those plays, the revenger acted crazy so that his targets wouldn't know what he was up to until the minute before he killed them. For example of someone pretending to be mentally ill after they murder someone or a group of people to get a different prison sentence and get let off easier. People blame the disease and not the person. In Hamlet, no one in Denmark besides a handful of people looked at Hamlet like he was a person after a while but they talked to him as if he was stupid or they were talking to the madness within him which Hamlet used perfectly to his advantage as a means to let the person’s guard down and be easier to obtain information or plant something untrue in their heads that bothers them.
Hamlet has a gameplan and knows exactly how to achieve his goal in the most meaningful way possible to him. When Guildenstern and Rosencrantz come to visit Hamlet I think he really starts to learn how people will treat him if he acts differently and what he can get out of it if he does so. We see mental illness so much in today’s culture and some of it is not as real as people think. We punish people who may think differently and act a little different by pumping them with pills or locking them away from society because they become a danger to the minds of others. When they are acting within society and are just a normal person the treatment they receive is with open arms and joy. But if that person becomes diagnosed with say schizophrenia or starts acting a little differently they are rejected and seen as some horrible thing that they can not come into contact with or else it will spread. Hamlet used this to his advantage as a way to stay in the shadows and not be detected easily by passersbye. He used it as a ploy and it worked out for the most part until his desire for revenge took hold of his sanity and killed Polonius which put everyone on high alert and ruined his ability to roam around the kingdom freely. He was now seen as a danger to himself and or society and had to be dealt with by sending him away from society(England), which happens now except the i'll just get put into isolation bays and have to sit there with pills in their system.
If Hamlet were to have had a real mental illness, it would have been detected by his mood earlier on his his life. Since there was not any good way to diagnose mental illness at that time it was acceptable to call him mad and treat him like a regular person who is just off their rocker a little bit. But they are fairly surprised to see him acting out in such a way for so long and in the extent at which he does so. The symptoms that Hamlet had throughout the play with seeing and hearing the ghost of his father would have been diagnosed as Schizophrenia in todays society and he would have been treated much differently than he was treated then.(“medicinenet.com”) Now, he would have been put in isolation and would have been pumped with pills to try to call his hallucinations down. Many people make the argument that he had schizophrenia but in fact that is unlikely for these reasons. Horatio and the other guards saw the ghost just as Hamlet did, Hamlet was on edge and it was Poloniuses fault for trying to hide behind a curtain and make a noise while Hamlet had a knife. In Hamlets defense, he was having a private conversation with his mother and was interupted and startled by a noise.
People, could make the argument that Hamlet truly did become “mad” after his father's death. It could've been caused from the toll of his father’s sudden passing. This happens to many people who have experienced a tragic loss or Traumatic event in their life. He might not of been faking it and really was sick, but people did not know the effects of mental illness at that time and only thought of him as crazy were possessed. Hamlet even talks about going into madness in the play “assume some other horrible form, / Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason/and draw you into madness”(1.4.72-74). This is the proof that even hamlet believes that he can go mad if the right circumstances occur. However I believe Hamlet is smarter than we all think. He continues to get information from people time and time again throughout the play just because he acts in a different manner throughout the play. He starts off subtly after his father’s death but when he talks to his father’s ghost. Hamlet has some reason to act the way he is acting at the beginning of the play but towards the middle and end it becomes apparent that it has escalated and he has gone completely bananas. While in the midst of Hamlet’s "madness" don't mind me you guys he still attends information and regain sanity after talking with that certain person. Hamlet knows what he's doing and I feel is scamming people throughout the play. Ophelia however, goes into complete madness and loses all
control of herself. This kind of proves Hamlets point about some horrible form and going into madness because for him you could snap out of it but she got sucked into the true illness that her father's death brought upon her. We even get to see some madness and Claudius as it becomes paranoid that hamlet will eventually eventually his father's death by killing him. But all of this information him that is receiving tries to change his thoughts throughout and even contemplate not killing Claudius is that would not be a sufficient form of revenge.
People in today’s society act mentally insane to get what they want a lot now. They pretend to be sick or feel a certain way to get medications, they act crazy and beg for money, they are crazy to get attention. Like hamlet, people use insanity to get attention most of the time by acting in a different way than the rest of society. But unlike back then, doctors are pushing people towards pills and telling them they have mental illnesses because they cannot truly test them. There are some illnesses that cannot be tested and are just diagnosed off of symptoms and self report which is sad because some people could pretend to be sick just to get more medications that they were not previously available to. According to Marcia Angell, recent studies have shown that the amount of mental illnesses has gone from 1/184 people in 1987 to 1/76 in 2007. Almost two and a half times more than before. People really do act crazy and sometimes for no reason which could cause them to be able to seem a little bit off to themselves Hamlet never says why he might act strange, but pretended madness was a widely-used plot device in the revenge tragedy of Shakespeare's time. In those plays, the revenger acted crazy so that his targets wouldn't know what he was up to until the minute before he killed them. For example of someone pretending to be mentally ill after they murder someone or a group of people to get a different prison sentence and get let off easier. People blame the disease and not the person. In Hamlet, no one in Denmark besides a handful of people looked at Hamlet like he was a person after a while but they talked to him as if he was stupid or they were talking to the madness within him which Hamlet used perfectly to his advantage as a means to let the person’s guard down and be easier to obtain information or plant something untrue in their heads that bothers them.
Hamlet has a gameplan and knows exactly how to achieve his goal in the most meaningful way possible to him. When Guildenstern and Rosencrantz come to visit Hamlet I think he really starts to learn how people will treat him if he acts differently and what he can get out of it if he does so. We see mental illness so much in today’s culture and some of it is not as real as people think. We punish people who may think differently and act a little different by pumping them with pills or locking them away from society because they become a danger to the minds of others. When they are acting within society and are just a normal person the treatment they receive is with open arms and joy. But if that person becomes diagnosed with say schizophrenia or starts acting a little differently they are rejected and seen as some horrible thing that they can not come into contact with or else it will spread. Hamlet used this to his advantage as a way to stay in the shadows and not be detected easily by passersbye. He used it as a ploy and it worked out for the most part until his desire for revenge took hold of his sanity and killed Polonius which put everyone on high alert and ruined his ability to roam around the kingdom freely. He was now seen as a danger to himself and or society and had to be dealt with by sending him away from society(England), which happens now except the i'll just get put into isolation bays and have to sit there with pills in their system.
If Hamlet were to have had a real mental illness, it would have been detected by his mood earlier on his his life. Since there was not any good way to diagnose mental illness at that time it was acceptable to call him mad and treat him like a regular person who is just off their rocker a little bit. But they are fairly surprised to see him acting out in such a way for so long and in the extent at which he does so. The symptoms that Hamlet had throughout the play with seeing and hearing the ghost of his father would have been diagnosed as Schizophrenia in todays society and he would have been treated much differently than he was treated then.(“medicinenet.com”) Now, he would have been put in isolation and would have been pumped with pills to try to call his hallucinations down. Many people make the argument that he had schizophrenia but in fact that is unlikely for these reasons. Horatio and the other guards saw the ghost just as Hamlet did, Hamlet was on edge and it was Poloniuses fault for trying to hide behind a curtain and make a noise while Hamlet had a knife. In Hamlets defense, he was having a private conversation with his mother and was interupted and startled by a noise.