Hamlet's Madness

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.