Hamlets Insanity Essay, Research Paper
While Hamlet was being in his “antic disposition” stage it allowed him to do several things that he otherwise would not be able to do if everyone thought he was in a normal state. The purpose of Hamlet feigning madness is in order to be undercover and see for certain if what has been told to him by the ghost is true. By not revealing the fact that he is not insane, he is able to get more information about the death of his father. Did his uncle kill his father and how can he get his mother away from his uncle are what Hamlet is set out to find.
Looking at Ophelia, Hamlet would like to express his intense, anger towards her without arising suspicion in her or in others that he is in a mental state. Hamlet says “Get thee to a nunnery” because this way she can avoid being a ‘breeder of sinners.’ Hamlet feels that life is unlivable and he comes up with a solution to this problem. To my understanding his solution is no more marriages and no more children. This view of Hamlet shows his reasoning and obviously his decisioning is impaired because of his insanity. This helped prevent others in the family from thinking that Hamlet was planning harsh actions such as killing Claudius.
With Gertrude, Hamlet would also like to express his anger towards her, as well as possibly kill her or make her go insane, without arising suspicion in others that he is not insane. In addition, he would like to confront Gertrude with the grounds of Claudius’ crime, without her thinking that he actually believes in them, so that she might somehow think about them and realize that Claudius is guilty. Now, she will no longer love Claudius and she will not believe that Hamlet thinks that Claudius is guilty. If she believes this, she might pass on this fact to others, leading to Hamlet’s downfall. Also, Hamlet does not want to confront Gertrude with the crime in a sane condition, which then will be forcing her to make a difficult choice between Hamlet and Claudius, with disastrous psychological results for Hamlet if she chooses against him.
While up at his mothers room Hamlet had originally planned to punish her with ‘verbal daggers’ for her being unfaithful , her unwillingness to listen to him so he releases his murderous impulse against her. In a moment of actual insanity he somehow manages to deflect the blow towards to her at the direction of a sound behind the curtain, killing the unexpected body of Polonius. At this moment he was going so insane that he totally ignored the body of Polonius and went on accusing his mother for treating his father badly and losing trust in him.
In treating relatives or friends, Hamlet would like to express his anger towards them without arising suspicion that he is in a sane state. He also wants to be able to punish them or hurt them for supporting Claudius, he hopes to do this by going free on a basis of insanity.
In addition this story was a tragedy and the tragedy in this story was of course Hamlet the man who has been destroyed by his fathers’ death and his mothers’ wrongdoings has made him an angry man. This angry man turned into a man that would go as far as acting insane to find the killer of his father and get Claudius away from his mother. In the end it finally all came true Claudius and Laertes had set out to kill Hamlet but in the act of doing so; Hamlet was stabbed with the poisonous sword, Gertrude drank to Hamlets health and her own(her death), Hamlet went on a rampage and killed Claudius, and Laertes was killed thus bringing an end to Hamlet and his “antic disposition”. In Hamlets last moments with his acting done he said to Horatio not to give up because his friend Laertes has died but to make sure that he tells the story of what has occurred.