Why is madness important in hamlet

Consequently, his behavior thereafter is frequently unfathomable. William Shakespeare, the writer of the tragic play, Hamlet, leaves Hamlet 's sanity up to interpretation. Throughout Shakespeare 's Hamlet, Hamlet 's questionable madness is explored through his real madness, feigned actions, and the reactions of others towards his madness. In some instances, Hamlet 's madness can be seen as authentic. Polonius presumes that Hamlet 's disillusioned love for Ophelia causes his madness.

Gertrude bases her reason on Hamlet 's experience over his father 's death and her fault in her quick marriage with her son 's uncle. On the other hand, Polonius bases his reason on his knowledge of and interference in the relationship between his daughter and Hamlet.

At first glance, Hamlet 's madness is regarded as innocent and thought to be from the problems that are already present. Nonetheless, with the assassination of Polonius by Hamlet, his madness interprets a different meaning. When Gertrude tells Claudius of this, …show more content… Shakespeare thus leaves his audience to fabricate their own perception with serving only minor stage directions. To relate, modern audiences must do their research to become accustomed to the way of thinking done by people of the Renaissance.

Get Access. Satisfactory Essays. Hamlet Words 2 Pages 1 Works Cited. Read More. Good Essays. Close Reading In Hamlet. Hamlet Essay Words 2 Pages. Hamlet Essay. Antic Disposition In Hamlet Essay. Hamlet's Women Words 2 Pages. Hamlet admits to suffering from melancholy. The death of his father only worsened a preexisting condition. Throughout the play, Hamlet displays pessimistic thoughts and negativity. He is unable to cope with his perceived responsibility to his father and is driven further into a state of depression Shaw.

This quest for revenge resulted in not only his own death, but in the deaths of many other characters in the play as well, including his mother, Gertrude, who drinks the poison that was meant for him.

His need for revenge against the man who murdered his father ended in the further destruction of his own family. Another character that can be construed as mad in Hamlet is Ophelia. Ophelia is portrayed as a weak character who is unable to think clearly for herself or to have any sense of individuality. Once these male influences are removed and these descriptions no longer define Ophelia, she loses her identity and becomes mad. According to Alison A.

James, St. Mad with grief over the death of her father, Ophelia drowned herself in a river. This madness, in the end, led Ophelia to commit suicide as she had nothing to live for without the men in her life who bestowed her sense of identity upon her.

Madness is one of the main themes of Hamlet. Hamlet and Ophelia both display symptoms of madness, but each become mad for different reasons. While these deaths both sparked madness in these characters, they each dealt with their madness in different ways.

Brown, Heather. Westminster College, n. Chapman, Alison A. Academic Search Complete. Frye, Roland Mushat. Princeton, N. Shakespeare, William. Project Gutenberg, Nov. He chooses his own fate when he is wrapped up in the idea of destroying his uncle to avenge his father. The thought of carrying out this revenge drives him to actually become mad and ruin almost all of his ties of friendship and his love for Ophelia. Without the one person she seemed to still trust in her life, she is lost faith in her ability to understand people when so many of them have lied to her.

After Hamlet left her and lied to her, she realized that her father was right, and Hamlet was just using her. Was it because he had strategically planed or was it because he was not positive his uncle was the murder? Hamlet was smart with how he made everyone think he was mad.

He wanted to through off everyone to make it easier for him to take vengeance for hid father. This shows that Hamlets mind thinks differently and is always thinking. At the end of the book Claudius wants Hamlet to drink and was deliberately forcing him to drink. This clouded his judgement as well as his responsibilities, which led to a tragic ending, because everyone died.

The conflicts he created for others included: Claudius becoming suspicious of Hamlet and enlisting the help of Guildenstern, Rosencrantz, as well as Polonius to spy on Hamlet, Gertrude was worried for him since he was acting mad, Ophelia went mad since Hamlet kill her father, and Laertes was fueled with rage for the same reason Ophelia went.

Being that Ophelia loved Hamlet, his role-play did ruin their relation. As a result, he is no longer honored and respected by the people of Scotland and he hates to admit that he is not able to govern properly as he wishes the doctor can cure the country.

He lacks the greatness, character, and ability to fill the role. There is duplication and repetition seen in everyday life and in various forms of art, duplication can be a natural occurrence as well as one created to enhance or give deeper meaning to an idea or situation.

Examining the duplications of characters, actions, and scenes in Hamlet can be useful in better understanding the play itself because these duplication are what the audience remembers most since they have seen it twice and thus we can make connections between the similarities and differences of repeated situations and what implications they have on the play.

Duplication creates a foundation onto which Hamlet is viewed in two,. Most of society would agree that anyone who kills his childhood friends and uncle has lost his mind, but sometimes, without giving it a second thought, they overlook the motivation and purpose behind the actions which would disprove the underlying assumption of insanity.