Is Hamlet Mad? Perhaps the world’s most famous mental patient‚ Hamlet’s sanity has been argued over by countless learned scholars for hundreds of years. As a mere student of advanced-level English Literature‚ I doubt I can add anything new to the debate in 2000 words‚ but I can look at the evidence supporting or dispelling each argument and come to my own conclusion. Hamlet is obviously experiencing grief and despair right from the beginning of the novel‚ with the death of his father and his
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their lifetime and so do the characters in the play‚ “Tragedy of Hamlet”. As a result‚ death is a tool that characters‚ such as Hamlet and Laertes‚ use to escape from sorrow. Hamlet shows signs of committing suicide while Laertes’s sadness turns into madness. Beginning with Hamlet‚ Hamlet shows his depression and desire to die as he says‚ “O‚ that this too too sullied flesh would melt; Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!; Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d; His canon ’gainst self-slaughter! O God!
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everyone else around him is engaged in deception and manipulation. Madness Hamlet’s "antic disposition" sparks a debate: Does Hamlet truly go "mad" or is it all an act? The ambiguity of Hamlet’s mental state and erratic behavior is compelling and seems to speak to the play’s overall atmosphere of uncertainty and doubt. Ophelia’s clear descent into madness (and subsequent drowning) is somewhat of a different issue. Ophelia seemingly cracks under the strain of Hamlet’s abuse and the weight
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He decides to pretend madness as part of his plan to get the opportunity to kill Claudius who was the suspected murderer. As the play goes on‚ his portrayal of a madman becomes believable‚ and the characters around him respond quite vividly. Through his inner thoughts and the obvious reasons for his actions‚ it is clear that he is not really mad and is simply an actor faking insanity in order to complete the duty his father assigned him. Hamlet only owns up to his madness because it buys him time
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of characters are not aware of‚ which is known as dramatic irony. Therefore‚ the audience can notice the minor‚ or even major‚ discrepancies or missed opportunities by the characters portrayed in the “madness” of Hamlet‚ the missed opportunity of killing King Claudius‚ and the untimely death of Ophelia. As the play
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feints madness‚ in order to soften up the minds of those he seeks to learn information from‚ by putting them off their guard. Hamlet also sets in motion a plan to discover his uncle’s guilt in the murder of his father through a play within a play within a play‚ aptly named "The Mousetrap." His clever pretension also leads Polonius astray in his presumption as to the cause of Hamlet’s supposed strange manner and Ophelia to believe that his love for her has gone with his sanity. Ophelia is also
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enough to truly ask why he was going mad. Mother’s are supposed to be there too‚ Gertrude however‚ only thought about herself‚ thankfully when she finds out Hamlet isn’t really crazy and finds the truth about Claudius she hides it‚ “O’er whom his very madness shows itself pure” (Shakespeare 189). Gertrude now has to pretend she doesn’t know the whole truth and treat her husband the same way she has done. Even though at first‚ she refused to believe it‚ for the first time in the play she stuck to her son
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5) Personally‚ I do feel sympathy for both because both are in the right in their own way. Hamlet is right because if Ophelia loved him she shouldn’t have listened to what other people had to say about Hamlet. Ophelia is right in her way because she is a very caring girl of her father’s rules and didn’t want to let her father down. 6) Yes Ophelia is shattered by the end of their conversation because she believed in Hamlet’s love for her and now Hamlet wishes to break each and every
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would happen if "Hamlet"’s Ophelia were to come back as a ghost in a contemporary UCSB classroom that just so happens to be rehearing for there own modern production of "Hamlet". The play dives into the subjects of madness‚ mental health‚ relationships‚ family‚ and society’s constructed gender roles. The play merges Shakespeare’s play "Hamlet" with the words of current students about the concept of the "good girl"‚ finding that the expectations and challenges that Ophelia faced in "Hamlet" surprisingly
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thwarted by his lies and deception. As the play continues‚ Claudius begins to commit many immoral acts for his own self gain. He has no problem colluding with Polonius to spy on Hamlet and Ophelia. He also asks Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to pretend to be friends with Hamlet in order to find the root of his madness. Claudius shows no mercy when he sends Hamlet to England to be killed. When Hamlet returns from England‚ Claudius arranges for a duel to take place between Hamlet and Laertes. He gives Laertes
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