I believe that Hamlets madness in the
play if fake, but acting mad slowly starts his descent into actual madness. Hamlet plays out and tells Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern his madness is just an act.
That he is pretending to be mad so he can get away with almost anything
he wants. One example of this when
Hamlet talks to Claudius he yells and rambles on so he does not have to have a
real conversation with him. His madness
lets people overlook his actions and they just so “Oh he is just mad it’s not
his fault.”
Between acts II and III we start to
see that Hamlets madness might not be a complete act anymore. We start to see Hamlets “acting” insane more
and more as the acts go on. This leads
us to believe that maybe it is not an act, and it is real madness. An example of this is how Hamlet and Ophelia are
not allowed to be together. Ophelia is forbidden
by her father to see, or be with Hamlet, and that plays a big deal into Hamlets
madness. After Hamlet goes into Ophelia’s
sowing room, which is extremely rare for a man to go into.
Hamlet is acting
insane, but he is only reacting to the events that have happened in the past
two months. The death of his father, King Hamlet, has mad Hamlet depressed, but
the fact that his mother, Queen Gertrude, has remarried so quickly, it leads
Hamlet very confused. The worst part of
it all is that she remarries to his uncle, his father’s brother. As the play develops, Hamlet learns that King
Claudius, not only married his mother, but has murdered his father. During Act
III, Hamlet has definitely reached a state of insanity. Everyone, except
Horatio, is plotting against him in one way or another, and he finally
confronts his mother.
Hamlet now starts
to speak to Ophelia and Queen Gertrude is extremely harsh ways. Hamlet calls
his mother a slut and tells her to keep it in her pants when it comes to
Claudius. He also yells and screams at
Ophelia, and says she is good for nothing.
To me a sane person could never do this to two people he once cared and
loved for so much. Hamlet also shows no remorse
for killing Polonius, and merely goes on and takes the body away like nothing even
happened.
Finally all this
shows that Hamlet is not just acting anymore.
He is mentally unstable, and should be kept an eye on for the rest of
the play. Someone who was not insane
could kill and man in cold blood, and feel absolutely nothing. With everything Hamlet has gone through there
is clear reason to believe he is insane.
I wonder how his madness will affect him against the plot that Claudius
has against him.
