Hamlet Madness Essay, Research Paper

Shakespeare? s Hamlet is a most puzzling and complex character, his mind the

topic of more elaborate depth psychology than any other character in English

literature. It is merely one time in a great while that the reader of literature comes

across a adult male who fakes lunacy, and finally immerses himself so deep into

this feigned lunacy to a point of entire metabolism into a new being.

Hamlet? s apparently concocted madness finally catalyzes the development of

his dormant, inward lunacy and natural disposition for pretence and

deception. Within Hamlet there are two types of lunacy: the really evident

outer lunacy, and a concealed lunacy that International Relations and Security Network? t even realized by Hamlet. The

interior lunacy is the consequence of the calamities within this drama ; viz. , the

incestuous matrimony of his widowed female parent to his uncle and her brother-in-law

which followed the tragic and sudden slaying of his male parent. It is this depression

and choler that set the phase for the remainder of the drama. Afterall, had he non

cared to revenge his male parent? s decease, the words of the shade would hold been

wholly ignored and at that place would hold been no ground to sham lunacy. But

because he was hurt, depressed, and incensed, he channeled all his power and

energy to derive retaliation, successfully. The bad lunacy was a merchandise of

Hamlet? s effort to confound the people of the palace and deviate any intuition

that may be targeted at him in his mission of exoneration of his male parent? s

decease. But what precisely is madness? In Act I, Scene 5, Hamlet urges the shade:

? Haste me to cognize? T, that I with wings every bit Swift as the speculation or the

ideas of love may brush to my revenge. ? ( lns. 33-35 ) Madness is status

that consequences from a individual? s compulsion with his aim. This entire

preoccupation with a specific mission blurs the individual? s world. It? s as

though the victim has become inhabited by himself and some other supernatural

power that takes over his senses and narrows his field of vision, restricting it to

his aim, mission, and aim. All other facets of his life pervert

into cheat pieces in the greater game. His mission consumes him, devouring his

life and go forthing him an incomplete individual. Rages, indefensible fickle behaviour,

and evil-doing are diagnostic such a province of being. Much of Hamlet? s

lunacy, when feigned, was due to necessity, nevertheless, he decidedly had a

natural disposition towards pretence and deception. To restrict the word

natural to? portion of one? s nature, ? intending built-in and innate, is

closed-minded. With a broader significance of the term, it becomes easier to explicate

Hamlet. By? natural, ? I mean unfaked, sincere, genuine. Therefore, a natural

disposition is non needfully inborn since it can be developed. Imitating

lunacy, although it was for a good cause, ruined Hamlet. After moving deranged

for an extended period, he became huffy. When moving mad for long plenty, an

disposition develops for dishonesty, deception, and misrepresentation. In an ironic

sense, Hamlet contaminated himself. He became plagued with his ain illness- the

unwellness he created. Following that transitional development into a genuinely huffy ego,

Hamlet begins to move in ways that do non name for his immorality, pretentious

behaviour. First, Hamlet has Rosencrantz and Guildenstern killed, even though

they were non aprt of his revenge-against-his-father? s-murder program. He could

have merely allow them on their manner since he was a free adult male anyhow. Such harsh

intervention was wholly unneeded in carry throughing his original aim. See, the

merely ground Hamlet feigned lunacy was t

Os take retaliation. If one applies this

logic, one must inquire: Be the deceases of these two work forces? necessary? in taking

retaliation on the slayer? Afterall, who is the slayer? Clearly, his unreason

led him to kill two people whose deceases were unneeded ( though they may be

justified, of class ) . He must hold done them, hence, irrespective of his

retaliation on Claudius and his motives and one can reason that it was his

mental lunacy that seized his spirit. Further grounds of this interior lunacy is

Hamlet? s brush with his female parent in Act III, Scene 4. It is in this scene

that Hamlet efforts to play the moralist and forces his female parent to see her

wrongs. It is more than this which signifies Hamlet as mad. It is his compulsion

with purging his female parent of her wickednesss that shows his lunacy. He screams: ? Nay,

but to populate in the rank perspiration of an enseamed bed, /stewed in corruptness, honeying

and doing love/ over the awful sty- ? ( III.iv.92-95 ) . He has gone beyond

moralist at this point. He is wildly assailing her in a manner so diagnostic

of a natural-born lunatic whose compulsion leads to irresistible impulse. Assorted with this

wild onslaught of his female parent, Hamlet besides irrationally onslaughts and putting to deaths Polonius

who was standing behind the drape. His actions are much like a rabid Canis familiaris

assailing anything which would acquire in his manner. From what Hamlet says after the

murder, he seems to believe that it may hold been Claudius ( III.iv.27 ) . This is

an irrational alibi, as Hamlet merely left Claudius a scene before. Hamlet is

so moving frantically and without a ground. But the clearest cogent evidence of his lunacy

is his compulsion with decease. As the horrors mount up, it becomes blindingly

clear that Hamlet descends from feigning lunacy to truly being mad. After

the violent death of Polonius, Hamlet is questioned about the decease and whereabouts of

the organic structure and his reply reveals a adult male who is in a morbid province of head. Hamlet

exclaimedhow one time the organic structure dies it goes through a rhythm where it is eaten by

worms who devour the flesh for the intent of acquiring nutrient for another individual.

Therefore, people, he believes, digest cadavers. ? Not where he eats, but where

he is eaten: a certain convocation of politic worms are e? en at him. Your worm

is your lone emperor for diet: we fat all animals else to flesh out us, and we fat

ourselves for maggots: your fat male monarch and your thin mendicant is but variable

service, two dishes, but one tabular array: that? s the end. ? ( IV.iii.20-26 ) Finally,

the cemetery scene depicts Hamlet? s epiphanic minute, the minute when he

contemplates the true significance of life. ? No religion, non a jot ; but to follow him

thither with modesty plenty and likelihood to take it ; as therefore, : Alexander died,

Alexander was buried, Alexander returned into dust ; the dust is earth ; of Earth

we make loam: and why of that loam, whereto he was converted, might they non

halt at a beer-barrel? ? ( V.i.201-206 ) Upon completion of the drama and thorough

analysis of the facts, one comes to the realisation that Hamlet was so a

most insane, yet unfortunate, adult male. Destroyed by the hurting of his household dirt,

he fell into a frenzied depression and mental province of insanity which finally

stirred choler within him. Within him lurked bubbled the desire to revenge his

father? s decease. Manufacturing a lunacy proved to be counter-productive because

Hamlet ended up enduring from a disease he created to assist himself.

Shakespeare? s Hamlet is every bit much about normal, sane work forces as it is about Hamlet.

It is true that Hamlet developed this natural disposition, nevertheless one must

acknowledge that he caused his ain insanity and commiseration the callow orphan for that.