Hamlet. Was he really mad?

[Bluebiird]

We've just started studying Hamlet in english lit. I've already read it once and found it brilliant (I read a version in modern language, so I didn't need to get my head around the Shakespearian langauge, if I had, I probably wouldn't have liked it as much). Anyway.
My tutor raised an interesting question during a recent lesson. 'Was Hamlet actually mad?'
What I mean is, was Hamlet just acting mad , did he actually go mad or both; did he act mad at first and then go mad?
We know he states that he is going to act mad, but, did he snap and go mad for real? That is the question. I'd love to hear what other people think about this question.

[Alex E Art]

It's a vexed question.
Read more essays about this theme...

google can help

[Alex E Art]

See 'Similar Threads' below

[Mark F.]

This is what I wrote about it last year :


I belive that Hamlet doesn't just act mad, in fact I believe he IS mad. Let me explain. I read the play for class a couple of years ago and as I was going over it before an exam I came up with this theory with a friend. Throughout the play there are two groups of characters, those who see Hamlet's ghost (Horatio, Bernardo, Marcellus...etc.) and those who don't (Claudius, Polonius...etc.). This is where it gets interesting; these two groups of characters never interact with eachother until the final scene of the play. It's as if Horatio & co. are as inexistant to the others as is the ghost. Hamlet interacts with all the characters and this leads me to think that the ghost and all the characters who see the ghost are just a fragment of Hamlet's imagination, his madness.
Of course, this is all very Freudian which may seem anachronic, but there is also quite a strong allusion to the Oedipus complexe, Hamlet hates his (step) father who stole his mother's love and he now wants to kill him. To sum it all up; I think the ghost is Hamlet's way of persuading himself that it is right to kill his step father.
This is a little far fetched but it did get me a great grade for the exam, heh.


http://www.online-literature.com/for...ead.php?t=7649 that's the full thread

[PeterL]

It's been a while since I read Hamlet, but it was my impression that he was reasonably sane, although somewhat depressed, throughout.

[Bluebiird]

It's been a while since I read Hamlet, but it was my impression that he was reasonably sane, although somewhat depressed, throughout.

This is what I think too. But, I'm keeping an open mind to other theories, both sides of the arugment, if you will.
One has to wonder, seeing the ghost of your dead father, being told that your uncle; now step father murdered him, knowing that you must avenge your father's death and have people telling you to stop grieving. Surely this could drive anyone mad, perhaps to the point of destruction .
And all of the people that die, because you've either killed them yourself, or they've died because of you. Couldn't the guilt drive you mad?

Like I said, I myself believe him to be sane throughout, just a little slow; and it seems that many people agree. But I wonder, could it be possible for the character to have actually gone mad?
That is a matter of opinion.
And people always have opinoins, which I'd love to hear. We are already getting an interesting view of opinions on this thread. The more, the better

[crisaor]

I never thought Hamlet was insane. I really didn't noticed any signs of it, I believe it's understood that acting that way is beneficial for the task of avenging his father, albeit he doubts throughout the entire play. Maybe Shakespeare made him so good at it that he even misleads readers.

As Polonius said:

Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't

[Rosalind]

Woah, Mark, my mind is blown by your theory. I never noticed that or thought about it. It's fascinating, but personally I think it's a bit far fetched. Not that I'm knocking the whole 'Hamlet-is-a-nutcase' thing. Horatio says something very interesting when the ghost is trying to speak with Hamlet:

"What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, or to the dreadful summit of the cliff that beetles o'er his base into the sea, and there assume some other horrible form, which might deprive your sovereignty of reason and draw you into madness?" (Act I scene V)

Of course, Horatio can see the ghost himself, so he doesn't believe Hamlet is mad. But the idea of follow the ghost and risk madness could be a nice little bit of forshadowing.

I agree with you Oedipus complex comments. Hamlet seems more bitter about the king and queen's romance than hateful towards his uncle on any really personal level. And when he talks with the ghost, it certainly seems that he's looking for justification for revenge. After all, the spectre shows up and tells Hamlet "I'm your dad, you're uncle's evil, avenge my death, blah blah", and while everyone else is muttering about fiends from hell, Hamlet doesn't take a lot of convincing.

However, like Bluebiird, I like keeping an open mind. Hamlet DOESN'T act mad for most of the play, and then, the whole play's pretty damned depressing already. Maybe my subconscious doesn't like the idea of Mad Hamlet.

[gsingle33]

I think you have to take the commonly-discussed theme of "appearance vs. reality" into account here.

Hamlet says to Horatio etc. that he will "put on" an "antic disposition," meaning that he will be adopting the suit of madness. This recalls his speech to Gertrude where he defends his long period of mourning for his father, saying that he "know[s] not seems" she had told him previously that "suits of solemn black" were to be cast off as an actor would a mask.

Now that all that is out of the way; I think that Hamlet is faking his craziness and that very shortly after he adopts this "disposition" the people around him begin to get wind of that idea. Act II sc 2 has Polonius (usually played as the most bumbling character in the play) figure out a hint of this when he says to the audience "Though this be madness, yet there is method in't." I must say, if POLONIUS can catch wind of this, then there must be SOME grounds to it.

The problem with this idea is that Hamlet actually says to Laertes just before their duel that what he did to wrong him (ie kill Polonius) "was madness" and he can take no responsibility for it because it wasn't him who performed the act. (Act V, scene 2) Well, there's a couple of ways to look at this: One, Hamlet was mad for the instant that he killed Polonius (temporary insanity). Or Two, Hamlet wants to fool himself into believing that he did no wrong and cannot be held responsible for Polonius' death (self-deception).

Just some thoughts...hope they came out clearly. This is my first post on a forum, so be gentle

[Xamonas Chegwe]

In the film "The Colditz Story" (and in an episode of the "Colditz" TV series) there is an officer that feigns madness in order to be released, resisting all attempts to prove that he is shamming. The irony is that when he is finally released, he is genuinely insane, having played the part for too long and too well.

This is always the way that I see Hamlet.

[Bluebiird]

I am amazed at the amount of people giving their views on this topic. I expected it to be a case of ''yes'', ''no'', ''right, let's get on with other posts now''. I am absolutely loving reading everyone's views. It gives us all different views of the play, through other people's eyes.

Remember, there is no right or wrong answer, I want to know what you believe.

Just some thoughts...hope they came out clearly. This is my first post on a forum, so be gentle

Well, I'm honoured that you've chosen my thread for your first post 'gsingle33'. Welcome. And I look forward to reading some of your posts in the near future

[The Unnamable]

I have never considered Hamlet to be mad (except in the sense of ‘angry’, as in his attack on women with Ophelia). In fact, I think he’s the sanest character in the Literature I’ve encountered so far (with the possible exceptions of Tom Sawyer and Richard III ). I suppose he must appear odd to the great and good of Elsinore. He questions his world in the kind of detail his world deserves. He sees more than anyone else in the play. How can anyone doubt the sanity of someone who gives that ‘What a piece of work is a man!” speech?

For me, the nearest he comes is in the scene with his mother (Act 3 scene iv), when he confronts her over having married Claudius, so much his father’s inferior. He simply cannot understand why she can’t see things the way he does. It’s the only time in the play when Hamlet looks so passionately to someone else to provide answers. She simply concludes, “Alas, alas, he’s mad.” I think the scene shows how young he is (I can’t believe he’s the thirty of the text). His advice to his mother has an almost childlike simplicity about it. Only someone relatively inexperienced in life could believe this:

“Refrain to-night,
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence: the next more easy;”

I think part of his behaviour can be ‘explained’ by often overlooked lines from Act 5 scene i, when he says to Laertes:

“I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat;
For, though I am not splenitive and rash,
Yet have I something in me dangerous,
Which let thy wiseness fear:”


Perhaps we should heed Hamlet’s warning to Guildenstern:

“Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of
me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know
my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my
mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to
the top of my compass: and there is much music,
excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot
you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am
easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what
instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you
cannot play upon me.”

[The Unnamable]

This is my first post on a forum, so be gentle

Ah, I remember my first post to this very forum. It was a balmy evening in the Valleys. I’d been chopping wood all day. Sipping vermouth, I let the monitor light and the hypnotic strains of Debussy entice me into a state of gay abandonment. The blood was banging in my ears. I knew I wanted to. I’d been thinking about it for longer than I’d ever admit. By the time you reach a certain age, you feel you have to, but I was worried that I’d do it wrong somehow. What if my efforts weren’t appreciated? What if I picked up a virus? I mean, they always seem to know what to do in the movies but this was real life. Once I’d made up my mind though, I knew that I’d see it through. Taking a deep breath, I softly eased my cupped hand around the mouse and pressed gently with my right index finger, “Submit”. It must have shot it into cyberspace at the speed of light because my creation appeared on the screen before me in an instant. The sense of release was overwhelming and I shuddered over and over. Then I sighed and lit up a cigarette.

[Empress Kat]

I think it depends on your definition of madness. I mean, clearly Hamlet does not have schizophrenia, or MPD.

In my English class, we define madness as emotion overpowering reason. By this definition, you realize, we are all a little mad, sometimes.

Hamlet certainly is. In the Nunnery Scene, for instance, he is certainly mad. However, in the scene where Hamlet calls Claudius his mother, he is obviously not mad, despite what his words might suggest.

[The Unnamable]

In the Nunnery Scene, for instance, he is certainly mad.

Why do you think Hamlet is mad in the ‘nunnery’ scene? I would agree that he is vicious and desperate but does that make him mad? The fact that Polonius, Claudius and Gertrude all assume that he’s mad makes me even less likely to believe it. I think it’s easier to consider Hamlet mad than it is to see him as I do – a ‘perpetual witness’.