Why Is Hamlet Insane

Would one be able to live a full prosperous life acting insane? The play Hamlet, written by William Shakespeare, is about a young prince who lost his father and has many issues dealing with his sanity and his family. Hamlet is not crazy because he says he is faking it, he may have severe depression, and he wants to avenge his father. Hamlet is faking being insane for his own sake.

There are plenty of examples of Hamlet appearing mad, but there are just as many examples of Hamlet appearing sane, even intelligent. Hamlet is even aware of his madness, which can be seen in the quote, “What I have done that might your nature, honor, and exception roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness… It ‘t be so, Hamlet is of the faction that is wronged; His madness is poor Hamlet’s enemy” (273). Hamlet is clearly aware of his own madness, but this does not necessarily invoke his sanity. Hamlet still appears insane,

In Hamlet, Shakespeare uses many references to sanity and insanity. Throughout the play, Hamlet goes back and forth between sanity and insanity, whether pretending to be insane just to mess with those he does not like or to save himself from getting in trouble. Hamlet is actually one of the smartest characters in the play, which is why he can pull off acting crazy so well. Shakespeare uses this idea of sanity and insanity to help the plot change and take a different directions. One of the most discussed topics of the Hamlet is whether Hamlet is insane or if he was just pretending the whole time.

Hamlet is comparable to the way many teens’ families work in their regular everyday life. I honestly think Hamlet is very comparable to teen’s family dynamics. In the book Hamlet is fighting for his farther the whole time. In teens’ whose family has divorced they usually prefer to fight for their real dad over their step dad.

This quote is important because he seemed totally happy talking to his childhood friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern but then he seemed pretty quickly. He began to take severe shots at the people of Denmark by basically calling them fake and suck ups. He says they wouldn’t even give Claudius the time of day when Hamlet was King but as soon as King

The question of whether or not Hamlet was insane is of a never-ending debate. Was he always crazy? Was he always faking it? Or was he somewhere in between? In this paper I will share three different views and provide my own interpretation of Hamlet’s sanity.

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, characters tread the line between sanity and madness. The eponymous character, Hamlet leaves the audience and his family stunned at whether he is merely performing madness or if he has truly lost his wits. This careful balancing act of sanity and madness is perpetuated across the text as characters grapple with what it means to be sane and what it means to be mad. Most notably, Hamlet is not the only character to suffer from a distracted mind. After Polonius’s death, Ophelia has been driven insane from grief from her father’s death.

The differences in their madness strongly support the assertion that Hamlet is, in fact, not truly mad. "The mad role that Hamlet plays to perfection is certainly a proof of Shakespeare's genius, but by no means a surety of the insanity of the prince, unless we be prepared to maintain that no one saves a madman can simulate dementia" (Blackmore). As Blackmore points out, his crazy behavior is such that only someone who is not mad could play the part so well. Again, a truly mad person would not have so much control over his actions and

Like if you want it this way , if a person is insane he would lose all his friends because of the ridiculous things he is going to say to them and that will probably freak them out, for example ,Hamlet manages to retain tight bonds with persons like his friend Horatio and his love interest Ophelia despite what appears to be his insanity. He demonstrates a tremendous degree of wisdom and understanding,in Act II Scene 2, Hamlet speaks with Horatio about the nature of death and the afterlife. Hamlet goes on to speak with Horatio about the ghost of his father, and the burden that has been placed upon him to seek revenge for his father's murder. This conversation demonstrates Hamlet's philosophical nature, as he examines the mysteries of life and death and the motivations behind human actions. This shows that Hamlet is capable of having smart and important dialogues and is not entirely detached from

“Man pleaded innocent by reason of insanity for the murder of his mother”(Gross). Although the case of the man murdering his mother is not entirely similar to what Hamlet does they do share some similarities. In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet , Shakespeare uses the idea of a someone murdering one of their own family members in his play. In Hamlet the once ruler of Denmark ,king Hamlet, is long dead before the play begins with everyone thinking his cause of death was from the bite of a snake This is proven to be a lie however, when Ghost of king Hamlet visits his son Hamlet and reveals to him that his true killer is Hamlet’s uncle ,the new king of Denmark, Claudius. The play then follows Hamlet as he tries to take revenge for his father’s death.

Furthermore, “Hamlet's madness is an act of deception, concocted to draw attention away from his suspicious activities as he tries to gather evidence against Claudius. He reveals to Horatio his deceitful plan to feign insanity,” (Mabillard “Deception in Shakespeare’s Hamlet”). This shows that Hamlet’s madness was not genuine; it was “an act of deception.” Hamlet was not insane. He “planned to feign insanity.”

An overwhelming amount of evidence shows that Hamlet faked his insanity to confuse the king and his accomplices. Often revered for their emotional complexities, William Shakespeare’s tragic characters display various signs of mental illness. Sylvia Morris notes “Hamlet contains Shakespeare’s most fully-developed study of mental illness, and has always intrigued commentators on the play.” (“Shakespeare’s Minds Diseased: Mental Illness and its Treatment”). When looking at the play, one can infer that Shakespeare makes the relationship between sanity and insanity undistinguishable from one another.

Hamlet shows a great deal of cunning, as he convinced everyone he knew that he was insane, even though he was not really, Hamlet said that he will “put an antic disposition on” [Shakespeare I, v, 171], so no one would suspect that he knows anything and check that the people who betrayed him were truly guilty, before he has his vengeance. Hamlet shows his skepticism of all information that is given to him, in case he was being fed false information or trying to trick him, Hamlet is very skeptical of Rosencrantz and

Hamlet is sane because he only acts mad in front of certain people, he told his friends of his plan of revenge, and the fact that many people continuously doubted his insanity. Hamlet only acted insane in front of the king and his chairmen. In other times, he acted completely normal. This is because to get revenge for the death of his father, he needs to buy time distracting King Claudius so that he can kill him. He admits to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that he is “but mad north-north-west.

There are many reasons for Hamlet to truly go mad including the death of his father, his mother’s remarriage and the relationship he holds with Ophelia, leading many away from the fact that he is “not