Hamlet was indeed a very sane
man. He was only feigning madness to further his own plans for revenge. His
words were so cleverly constructed that others will perceive him as mad. It is this consistent cleverness that is the
ultimate evidence of his complete sanity. Can a mad person be so clever? No, a
mad person cannot. Hamlet is sane and brilliant.
After Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus see the
ghost, Hamlet tells Horatio that he is going to "feign madness". If
Horatio is to notice Hamlet acting strange it is because he is putting on an
act. "How strange or odd some'er I bear myself/(As I perchance hereafter
shall think meet/To put an antic disposition on)/That you, at such times
seeing, never shall,/With arms encumbered thus, or this headshake ,/Or by
pronouncing of some doutful phrase,/As "Well,well,we know," or
"We could an if we/would,"/Or
"If we list to speak," or "There be an if they/might,"/Or
such ambiguous giving-out, to note/That you know of me-this do
swear,/(I,v,190-201).Hamlet states that from this point forward I may act weird
but to ignore my acts of madness for they are just that, acts, and are in no
way a sign of true madness. Only a sane and rational person could devise such a
plan as to act insane to convince others that he is insane when he actually has
complete control over his psyche.
Hamlet only acts mad when he is in the presence
of certain characters. When he is around Polonius, Claudius, Gertrude, Ophelia,
Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern he acts completely irrational. When Hamlet is
around Horatio, Bernardo, Fransico, the players, and the gravediggers Hamlet
acts completely sane.
When Hamlet and Polonius meet in II,ii Hamlet
calls Polonius a fishmonger and makes strange conversation with him. In IV,iii
Hamlet refuses to tell Claudius were he has hidden the body of Polonius and
goes on about how Polonius is at supper. When Hamlet encounters Gertrude in her
closet, an unusual place, in III,iv. He yells at his own mother. In II,i Hamlet
enters Ophelia's closet, a highly unusual act, he is dressed badly, and acts
very strange towards her. Claudius and Polonius set up a clandestine meeting
between Hamlet and Ophelia in III,i. Ophelia then tries to return some gifts
that Hamlet gave to her and Hamlet claims that he did not give her any gifts
and that he never loved her at all. During the play in III,ii Hamlet sexually
harasses Ophelia in front of the entire audience of the play. In IV,ii Hamlet
refuses to tell Rosencratz and Guildenstern where he has hidden the body of
Polonius. Hamlet has Rosencratz and Guildenstern, two people that used to be
his friends, put to death in England.
On all occasions when Hamlet is in contact with
Horatio, Bernardo, Fransico, the players and the grave diggers Hamlet acts like
a completely normal person under complete control of his psyche. Only a person
that was truly sane and had a definite purpose behind a feigned madness could
pull off such believable acts of feigned madness.
Even Claudius and Polonius believe that Hamlet
is not insane.
"Love? His
affections do not that way tend/Nor what he spake, though it lacked form a
little,/Was not like madness. There's something in his soul/O'er which his
melancholy sits on brood/And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose"
(III,i,176-180). Claudius states Hamlet's emotions are not from love. What he
does is not like madness, but it has a higher purpose. Hamlet knows something
is amuck and that he is going to set things right. His madness is part of a
plan that he has which is about to be hatched.
"Though this
be madness, yet there is/method in't" (II,ii,223-224). This occurs when
Polonius and Hamlet are talking and Hamlet is acting unusual and Polonius
clearly states that he believes that there appears to be a reason behind
Hamlet's actions and that they are logical in nature.
Shakespear gives a definite example of someone
who has definitely gone mad in the play Hamlet. Ophelia is definitely crazy.
After being rejected by Hamlet and the Death of her father she just could not
handle it anymore. She went around dancing, singing about death, erratic
behavior, and ultimately her "death". She just could not handle everything that had happened to her
and gave up. On the other hand Hamlet is not crazy, he has complete control
over his psyche.
Hamlet tells his mother that he is not mad.
"That I essentially am not in madness/ But mad in craft"
(III,iv,209-210). Hamlet states, that he is not crazy in a sense that he has
lost it completely and gone totally insane, but crazy like a fox. He has a plan
to avenge his father's murder.
Hamlet is not mad. Everything he does has a
purpose to it. He is out to avenge his father's murder. The facts that support
this argument are Hamlet tells Horatio that he is going to feign madness,
Hamlet only acts mad in front of certain characters. Claudius and Polonius
believe that Hamlet is not mad but that there is a purpose behind his madness,
Shakespear gives an example of a truly mad person, and that Hamlet tells his
mother that he is not crazy. These facts prove beyond a doubt that Hamlet had
complete control of psyche at all times throughout the play.
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