When he finds out the King Claudius might have killed King Hamlet he has to go undercover to find out if it is the truth. To do this he pretends like he is losing it after his fathers death. This fools many of the other characters, like Polonius. The spirit that I have seen May be the devil, and the devil hath power T' assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps, Out of my weakness and my melancholy, As he is very potent with such spirits, Abuses me to damn me. (2.2.627-632). In this you can see that he could have actually slipped into insanity, but from other texts you could argue that he is acting. I think is a very interesting topic because you can never be completely sure if mentally he is always there, it can always be argued. I really think that if he did slip into madness then it would make Hamlet more human and to the readers. It would be considered normal for a person to be very upset if their father died and then their mother remarried very soon after. It can all be a very traumatic experience and I love the way Shakespeare wrote it all.
I seem to admire Shakespeare in the way he lets metaphors flow into his work seamlessly. He uses metaphors to compare one thing to another or to exaggerate something. O, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven (3.3.40). This is one of many examples of a metaphor in which he compares all of his sins to how high heaven must be above the earth. Metaphors are a great writing technique, they help readers understand the description and how to view an item or