The essence of truth is a strong force that can make even a giant feel like a pebble. A Presence similar to a tiger hiding in the shadows waiting, feeding on the guilt felt by those that make the truth their enemy. Each human takes truth differently, and for some who are mentally more, 'imaginative ' the circumstances may change. Feeling such guilt or loss may make the pain feel more real than it is. For Hamlet, this is his truth. The loss of his father causes him to believe the ghost was there when it never really was. No one ever saw a ghost; they merely saw the truth. That is why so few people saw it, and why it only appeared circumstantially. The ghost was an initiator for Hamlet, while the ghost was only a creation of his imagination. …show more content…
Looking at the only person who can actually talk to the ghost actually reveals more about the function of the ghost in this play. Hamlet might actually have multiple personality disorder, and may not have gone mad. His original personality is still there, but he now has others that act differently, causing others to see him as crazy. Symptoms that we see Hamlet fit for this illness are impulsivity, self-destructive behavior, rituals, mood-swings, psychotic-like symptoms including auditory and visual hallucinations behavior. He is depressed, and has been emotionally disregarded by both his mother and uncle. They undermine him for mourning his father’s death and that is traumatizing to someone who cares so dearly for a lost one. We also know that there were two months in between the time of the wedding where we first meet Hamlet and his father’s death; Imagine the original impact his father’s death had on him and the criticism we have not seen from his mother and uncle. The constant emotional abuse caused him to split personalities, give voice, and picture to the ghost. His impulsivity, self-destructive behavior, and ‘rituals’ are his actions to take revenge on the murderer of his father. He goes as far as letting his uncle and mother know that he knows his father was murdered and how. He puts his life in danger in an ‘amusing’ way and does not fear the loss of his own life. In this process, he …show more content…
On the surface, it is hard to develop an answer to the question: Was Hamlet mad or was he faking it? But, if you look a little deeper you can hypothesize that Hamlet is mad. His original self was buried like his father. It is not lost, but it is hidden with the essence of truth. Having to hide behind other personalities to protect his mind from the grief of losing his father. It is not an uncommon situation. Especially in the older times when everyone with a mental illness, no matter what it was, was labeled crazy, and shunned. Nevertheless, the truth is a strong force that can make even a giant feel like a pebble. Each human takes truth differently, and for some who are mentally more, 'imaginative ' the circumstances may change. Feeling such guilt or loss may make the pain feel more real than it is, and it may break a person. Hamlet just happens to be lost to the ghost. The representation of insanity, himself, and
Act 1, Scene 1: “Let us impart what we have seen tonight Unto young Hamlet, for, upon my life, This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him” (Crowther 16). I think this quote really sets up things for the next act, and the rest of the play. The ghost would not talk to them, so they decided to tell Hamlet about the ghost because they felt it would talk to him. This sets up Hamlet to discover the ghost who is his late father, and learn about his murder. Act 1, Scene 2: “Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, That can denote me truly” (Crowther 24).
Having your father die is bad enough, but to have your mother marry your uncle, within a few weeks of your father’s death? Then to see the ghost of your dead father. That would drive anyone a little insane, but maybe not to the extent that everyone thought Hamlet was acting. Hamlet is torn between acting sane and letting everyone else see him as insane.
Hamlet at first was a little bit weary of the ghost but when the ghost told Hamlet that he was stuck in purgatory until revenge was sought out, hamlet was on board. Hamlet adored his father so when the ghost asked him to seek revenge, and when it told him to murder claudius it's all he focuses on for the majority of the novel. The effect seeking justice had on Hamlet was profound. He became obsessed with finding a proper way to kill the king. His first attempt was to put on a play where he hired actors to recreate the old king's murder to see how the queen and Claudius would react.
This is explained by the Ghost when Hamlet learns of his father being murdered in Act 1 Scene 5, in lines 35 -39, “’Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard, A serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark Is by a forged process of my death Rankly abused. But know, thou noble youth, The serpent that did sting thy father’s life . Now wears his crown.” 2) The soliloquies that Hamlet provides over the sequence of the entire play allows us to distinguish what Hamlet was thinking about and display how he was losing his sanity.
In William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, Hamlet assumes the disguise of a man that has lost his mind. Hamlet uses this madness to masquerade around in such a way as to not draw attention to his true plan, to avenge his murdered father. Many readers debate as to whether Hamlet is truly mad, or whether he is fully aware of his actions and what he is doing. However, both sides of the debate can agree that Hamlet’s apparent madness is a key element of the play, Hamlet. There are many reasons as to why readers debate Hamlet’s madness.
The Skull Jar William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet around 1600, telling the story of a prince dealing with the death of his father and the quick remarriage of his mother to his uncle. The play uses mental health, both real and faked, as a way to show human behavior. Commonly studied in high schools all over America, this tale has had a profound effect on the way mental health is viewed. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark tells the story of Hamlet, the young prince. When the play opens, his father has just died, and his mother has just married his father’s younger brother Claudius.
It was hard for Hamlet to act crazy because he was still grieving over his father 's death and his mother not showing that she cares. Hamlet also lost Ophelia which makes his situation even worse than it was because he has no one in his. No family, no girlfriend, no one. Hamlet feels betrayed by his mother and feels like he can 't trust anyone. Shakespeare gives Hamlet these struggles in the play to amplify the mental and psychological events that make the reader feel bad about what all happened to Hamlet.
Hamlet, also, could not get over the death of his father. He found out when his father’s ghost came back that his brother, and Hamlet’s uncle, murdered him. He then was willing to do anything possible to get revenge on Claudius, his uncle. Both of
A select few scholars believe that Hamlet is not pretending to be mad, but in reality is insane. Hamlet reveals his insanity through his strange behavior toward others. Dr. Simon A. Blackmore claims, “The Real or Assumed Madness of Hamlet” in Shakespearean Online that Hamlet is insane because of the fact that he is able to see a ghost while others cannot (215). Dr. Blackmore in The Real or Assumed... also asserts that in Act III, scene IV, the instance when Hamlet is in Gertrude chamber and Hamlet states to Gertrude that he see a ghost.
He did not want anyone knowing about his encounter with his father’s ghost. This shows that Hamlet can not be acting mad. Consequently, he believes that one should not perform a role, but actually become the person they 're pretending to be. This shows in his stunt when instead of pretending to be mad, he becomes mad in all
The ghost also reveals that his death was no accident and was murdered by his brother Claudius and should be revenged. These events challenged Hamlet and cast’s a burden to his moral faith. Hamlet decides to not act quickly with his plans of revenge considering there was no evidence to prove that Claudius killed his
King Hamlet’s ghost in Hamlet plays a very significant role in Shakespeare’s play even though he only appears briefly in the very beginning and two other times throughout the play. King Hamlet’s ghost furthers the play in many ways. He affects action by setting the play in motion, he affects the theme of revenge, and he helps develop other characters, specifically his son, Hamlet. He sets the play in motion by causing the wheels to spin inside of Prince Hamlet’s head, the ghost is the whole reason for Hamlet trying to extract revenge upon his murderous Uncle Claudius who is now the King of Denmark. The ghost affects the theme of revenge by causing Young Hamlet to be seized by vengeance, the whole play turns into a story of Prince Hamlet trying to avenge his father’s wrongful death.
Throughout the play Hamlet most of the conflict comes from Hamlet's internal struggle of deciding whether he should trust the words and appearance of the ghost of his father. Just like a student trying to finish an essay, his procrastination has made him more eager to carry out the act but that dire obligation he so badly wants to fulfill can't be done without any sound proof that he strives to find. This comes to show Hamlet's inability to trust the Ghost because he didn't believe that the existence of the ghost of his father would be possible, he believed that the apparition might be a devil trying to lure him in to committing an unjustified act, and he needed to rely on Claudius’s reaction to the play to validate his trust with the Ghost. At the start of the play, Hamlet is awestruck and dubious about the Ghost because during his first meeting with the apparition, he was so stunned of the supernatural sighting that he felt skeptical if it was even possible for such an episode to happen.
Hamlet is one of the most memorable Shakespearean plays due to the focus on a young prince`s struggle with obeying the ghostly figure that we witness briefly on stage. The ghost is certainly an important figure in shaping the outcome of this revenge tragedy. Thus, we must ponder what is the ghost and how it can be interpreted in a plethora of ways. It is arguably seen as the spirit of Hamlet`s father, a figment of his imagination and being Shakespeare himself. Therefore, this essay will examine these potential answers to the question.
The role of Hamlet 's father as a ghost is to not only avenge his own death, but to make sure that Hamlet gets vengeance for claudius murdering him. The nature in which the ghost appears differs between each one of the three appearances. Throughout the play the ghost appears in many different ways, his main objective is to have Hamlet get revenge for his death. The role of the ghost in hamlet can be seen from different points of view, it can be seen as the ghost being hamlets father is trying to make contact with Hamlet to avenge his murder by Claudius.