Come poke holes in my logic

So I'm writing a 2-3 page paper where I will prove Hamlet gradually slips into madness. My logic looks like this:

1.) Hamlet does not act mad at the start of the play (he warns others that he will start acting mad so they don't worry; this shows his clarity of thought)

2.) Hamlet acts mad at the end of the play (this point is uncontested)

3.) Hamlet does not garner any benefit or gain anything from acting mad at the end of the play (most of the proof will be required here)

Therefore, Hamlet is crazy because he is acting mad during the play for no reason.


Here is where I need some help. What possible benefits could Hamlet derive from acting mad? The only gains I can think of would be that he gathers information with ease because others let their guard down. That would explain why he acted mad originally, but then why would he continue to act mad once he knows that it was Claudius that killed his father? Why would he continue to act mad enough to pick a pissing match with Laertes in the graveyard?

I have read through other threads marked similar and have not found information about the positive side of feigning madness. If you can't think of any, please post so; that is really the confirmation I'm looking for. If you see a reason why my logic if flawed, let me know so I can fix it.

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Originally Posted by HowlingBarley

2.) Hamlet acts mad at the end of the play (this point is uncontested)

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Is it?

The Hamlet of Act 5 is certainly a different Hamlet than the one of the earlier acts, but I would attribute this not to madness, but to a new found resolve and resolution in comparison to the brooding, reflective Hamlet of the earlier Acts. In short, Shakespeare regains control of his protagonist that has been subconsciously avoiding the climax of the play through his questioning.

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Here is where I need some help. What possible benefits could Hamlet derive from acting mad? The only gains I can think of would be that he gathers information with ease because others let their guard down. That would explain why he acted mad originally, but then why would he continue to act mad once he knows that it was Claudius that killed his father? Why would he continue to act mad enough to pick a pissing match with Laertes in the graveyard?

I have read through other threads marked similar and have not found information about the positive side of feigning madness. If you can't think of any, please post so; that is really the confirmation I'm looking for. If you see a reason why my logic if flawed, let me know so I can fix it.

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Hamlet's reasoning is that by acting mad, Claudius will be distracted by his madness from noticing Hamlet's revenge plot. This is, for more than one reason, relatively unsuccessful, as Claudius's suspicions are even more aroused and - more importantly, Hamlet postpones the revenge himself.

Also, Hamlet knows relatively early that Claudius has killed King Hamlet (at least by 1.4), and his incessant need for more evidence is a major character trait that could be looked at as madness, but I wouldn't personally subscribe to this theory.


EDIT: rereading your original post, if you can prove that Hamlet was actually mad in 2-3 pages you deserve to be teaching at Yale. Many have written pages and pages on the subject to no consensus what you attempt in 2-3.

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Originally Posted by HowlingBarley

Why would he continue to act mad enough to pick a pissing match with Laertes in the graveyard?

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Hamlet loved Ophelia. Her supposed betrayal and Gertrude's hasty and incestuous remarriage, has rattled his faith in women. In the graveyard, Laertes heartfelt protestations provoke wronged Hamlet beyond all reason.

I lov'd Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers
Could not (with all their quantity of love)
Make up my sum.

This is, of course, unbridled passion, not insanity.

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Originally Posted by Gladys

This is, of course, unbridled passion, not insanity.

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While it is possible to view that statement as an extravagant testament to their love, it is much easier to view it as insane. You displayed a positive outlook I don't share; Hamlet also tells Ophelia that he does not love her and that she should go be a nun.

To NMH: It seems to me like hamlet becomes more and more polarized towards the end. There were many examples of his declining mental state, I go in search of them now. Thank you for taking the time to reply, your response was just what I needed to get my brain turning.

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Originally Posted by HowlingBarley

While it is possible to view that statement as an extravagant testament to their love, it is much easier to view it as insane. You displayed a positive outlook I don't share; Hamlet also tells Ophelia that he does not love her and that she should go be a nun.

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Hamlet's "I lov'd Ophelia" overtly refers to that happy time before she followed her father's advice to break with Hamlet. Once Ophelia has chosen to follow the conservative advice of Polonius, a disgusted and betrayed Hamlet summarily and with sound reason, spurns her.

you seem to be echoing t.s. eliot who says that hamlet is an artistic failure because his bufoonery undermines tragedy as defined by the greeks.

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Originally Posted by Gladys

Hamlet's "I lov'd Ophelia" overtly refers to that happy time before she followed her father's advice to break with Hamlet. Once Ophelia has chosen to follow the conservative advice of Polonius, a disgusted and betrayed Hamlet summarily and with sound reason, spurns her.

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I believe Hamlet's problem with Ophelia (and women in general) run a lot deeper than for just a simple reason like this.

Hamlet's claim that "forty thousand brothers / Could not with all their quantity of love / Make up my sum," and his following ridiculous proposals all demonstrate in Hamlet a sort of extremist - action oriented Hamlet, and it's absurd to take his claim seriously.

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Originally Posted by mayneverhave

...it's absurd to take his claim seriously.

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Yes. While Hamlet may spurn Ophelia for ostensibly coherent reasons, his viewpoint, his world vision, is extreme, myopic and, in my opinion, narcissistic.

But not mad.

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Originally Posted by Gladys

Hamlet loved Ophelia. Her supposed betrayal and Gertrude's hasty and incestuous remarriage, has rattled his faith in women. In the graveyard, Laertes heartfelt protestations provoke wronged Hamlet beyond all reason.

I lov'd Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers
Could not (with all their quantity of love)
Make up my sum.

This is, of course, unbridled passion, not insanity.

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No, it just shows his egotism.


Seriously though, Hamlet doesn't seem mad - his schemes are all brilliant, and in truth he is victorious in the end. Hamlet feigns madness, but is he really mad, or just being ironic? Is he crazy, or just outwitting everyone around him? Is he really talking gibberish, or are we too stupid (we as in everyone else in the play) to understand him.

I don't think he's mad, and I don't think he stalls. He delays in order for him to finally spring the trap that will kill Claudius. He never doubts that he will kill him, he simply doubts when the best moment will be.

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Originally Posted by JBI

I don't think he's mad, and I don't think he stalls. He delays in order for him to finally spring the trap that will kill Claudius. He never doubts that he will kill him, he simply doubts when the best moment will be.

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I'll give you that - Hamlet at no point doubts that he will kill Claudius - only when he will do it. I would, however, say that Hamlet's constant procrastination of the revenge (specifically 3.3 when Claudius is at prayer) is less because Hamlet desires the perfect revenge (as in killing Claudius when he is in a state of sin), as some critics have pointed out, but because of Hamlet's irregular dissatisfaction with the state of things in Denmark, and that it is his unfitting burden to fix things:

The time is out of joint. O cursed spite
That ever I was born to set it right!
(1.4)

The fact that the world is out of order is a constant motif throughout the play, and felt by mostly all of the characters (not just Hamlet). I'm more of Harold Bloom's opinion that Hamlet was not born for his role in the play - the role as the avenger - and thus prolongs it. Hamlet's exact reason for his melancholy is shifting - most of it is concentrated on his mother, but in 5.2 as he goes about his revenge, he shows relatively little interest in the issue, and the issue of revenge at all. As Coleridge said, "[Hamlet] dies the victim of mere circumstance and accident." Hamlet's direct accusation of Claudius at the end of the play - what the entire play has been building up to - is a let down dramatically, given its seeming importance in the play.

If one is to consider Hamlet as a metafictional - and it is doubtful that Shakespeare considered this - but Hamlet's prolonging of a play in which he has no role that fits his character is perhaps a way of prolonging his existence - and his cognition. If Hamlet is aware that the conclusion of the play requires his death, he drags it out because he needs to finishing thinking and speaking, the "rest is silence".


P.S. and yes I realize I wrote far too much right there, and this has little to do with the original topic.

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Originally Posted by mayneverhave

If Hamlet is aware that the conclusion of the play requires his death, he drags it out because he needs to finishing thinking and speaking, the "rest is silence"

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Fascinating.

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Originally Posted by HowlingBarley

So I'm writing a 2-3 page paper where I will prove Hamlet gradually slips into madness. My logic looks like this:

1.) Hamlet does not act mad at the start of the play (he warns others that he will start acting mad so they don't worry; this shows his clarity of thought)

2.) Hamlet acts mad at the end of the play (this point is uncontested)

3.) Hamlet does not garner any benefit or gain anything from acting mad at the end of the play (most of the proof will be required here)

Therefore, Hamlet is crazy because he is acting mad during the play for no reason.


Here is where I need some help. What possible benefits could Hamlet derive from acting mad? The only gains I can think of would be that he gathers information with ease because others let their guard down. That would explain why he acted mad originally, but then why would he continue to act mad once he knows that it was Claudius that killed his father? Why would he continue to act mad enough to pick a pissing match with Laertes in the graveyard?

I have read through other threads marked similar and have not found information about the positive side of feigning madness. If you can't think of any, please post so; that is really the confirmation I'm looking for. If you see a reason why my logic if flawed, let me know so I can fix it.

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The graveyard scene; that can be seen as Hamlet's anger at men from Ophelia's family always keeping her away from him....and so in her death he wants to prove once and for all that he loved her more than Laertes and Polonius- perhaps - but for that to work Dover's interpretation that Hamlet knows that Ophelia is being used by Polonius against him has to be implemented.

well I agree that Hamlet was not mad in the beginning but then becomes mad as the play progress. I think his growing melancholia expressed through his soliloquies, becomes merged with his assumed madness....which leads to an instable mind. If you look at G.W.Knight, he describes Hamlet as a "sick soul" and I think the growing disease imagery as the play itself progresses illustrates that Hamlet is becoming sick and sicker "at heart", as he delves into the play-- and that causes his gradual madness- for the Play forces his very psychology to be challenged.

btw.
You all make great points, I just wanted to ask though, does the fact that he never questions if he should murder Claudius enough to suggest that he never doubts he can do it? I mean throughout the play he comes out with excuses for simply not just killing Claudius after the ghost....implying i suppose, that he doesn't want to do it.......and when he does- when he finally kills Claudius the first thing he calls him is a "incestuous ...Dane" The focus is far too much on Claudius and Gertrude's incestuous relationship being avenged rather than his fathers death.