Theme Of Insanity In Hamlet

Shakespeare’s hero, Hamlet, and his insanity is shown and is demonstrated in the different parts of the play. Many parts in the play points out his madness and his loss of control. Hamlet shows many mood swings throughout the play that makes him act mad and speaks like an insane. Hamlet illustrates many unclear emotions to show his insanity. We can see that there are two versions of Hamlet in the play because of the different actions. Sometimes he acts as a perfect prince and sometimes he acts as he is mad. There is a shift in the different personality Hamlet image, he therefore shows us that he in fact insane, with many example shown throughout the play.
Whether Hamlet loves Ophelia or not is very interesting in the sense that we see he is
accumulating bitterness and this turns him into an insane character that affects his relationship with Ophelia. He insulted her and he did not take care of her. He thinks that she does not show any love for him. He grew madness and is devastated by her lack of honesty and he thinks of her unfaithfulness when she returns all his gifts and lied to him. His disagreement and conflicts by all these events that brings an increase of his insanity. “I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God has given you one fate and you make yourselves another. You jig and amble, and your lisp, you nickname god’s creatures and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I’ll no more on’t. It hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages. Those that are married already, all but one, shall live. The rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go.”(Act 3, scene 1).He illtreats Ophelia and uses many hurtful words towards her. We see that he becomes insane rather than hurt, through his action. Ophelia reassures that Hamlet is indeed insane “Heavenly powers, restore him! ( Act 3 scene 1). His insanity is moreover shown when he shows his behaviour towards Ophelia. He jumps into her grave and fights with Laertes and he even say he loves Ophelia. During the fight he acted like a mad person when he says he never loved her, when she returns his letters and gifts when she was still alive. His insanity is moreover shown when he tells Laertes that he killed Polonius.
We sees Hamlet madness when he begins to believe the ghost is a devil as he says, “The spirit that I have seen May be the devil: and the devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape”.
We can definitely see his madness and the evidence that he really goes mad when he said he sees his father’s ghost in his mother’s chambers while his mother does not see the ghost. Hamlet intentions in acting insane in order to get to his goal: "I essentially am not in madness”, Hamlet tells his mother that he is not mad and that he is mad in craft. [Act III, scene IV, lines 188-199]. Hamlet believes he is sane all the times, and did not realize that his actions and his madness is overwhelming him. His attitude resulted to the death of several people which included his mother and the King of Denmark. He is more desperate with the marriage of his mother to his uncle. We realize his violence and jealousy towards his mother. With these events, he builds frustration and anger and which turns him into an insane character. After Hamlet had killed Polonius, he had nothing to say and he even went on to call him a rat. This shows that he doesn’t care much about killing someone and moreover it does not affect him too much because he is so persistent in revenge. It seems as if he will go above and beyond his limits to get revenge. After the death of Polonius, Ophelia dies and this does not affect Hamlet as much as we believe in the consequences because he does state that, “[He] did love [Ophelia] once,”
yet it still doesn’t affect him at all the way we think that it would. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern showed their betrayal to him due to the mischievous plan to murder his uncle Claudius. His insanity makes him thinks that he clears himself in his revenge and kills them. He is always thinking of death and revenge. He tries to clean himself and justify his action by explaining to his only remaining friend, Horatio, that "'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes / Between the pass and fell incensed points / Of mighty opposites." Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who is more interested in money while they lost their lives and friendship with Hamlet.
During the play we can see the different form of his character. He is accumulating frustration and having mixed feeling turns him into a very insane character. Finding himself in these difficult situation he builds madness all along. Being an insane character, Hamlet shows a lot of good and bad character at the same time. He is so badly afflicted by his father’s death and his mother’s decision that he sees it as an ‘incestuous sheets’.