It isn’t long before this disconnect aggravates itself, quickly spiralling into the uncapped psychosis commonly attributed to Hamlet in the latter part of the production. The catalyst? As The Mousetrap continues along its course, King Claudius stands before the crowd and takes his leave of the scene, retreating to places unknown. Hamlet, seeing this singularly ambiguous action as proof positive of his uncle’s guilt, allows an unconfirmed suspicion to congeal as fact in his delusion-wracked psyche, one which carries with it dire action. Soon afterwards, Hamlet tracks Claudius to his quarters, draws his sword, and says, “Now might I do it (pat,) now he is a’praying, / and now I’ll do’t” (3.3.77-78). While the act of murder isn’t followed through
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This has always been, for it was not so long ago that strong-willed women were locked away in poorly-administered asylums, subject to inhumane stints of electroshock therapy and lobotomies alongside others of supposedly “mental” dispositions due their being more opinionated than their feminine peers; indeed, misdiagnosis and misunderstanding continue to plague our highly-learned modernity. By that same scent, the artistically and philosophically-minded have struggled since time immemorial to get to the nub of the concept of derangement, often to no avail; if they had proven able to do so, such a paper as this would be unwarranted in existing. Perhaps it is for the better, for if we could grasp such lunacy as we would the colors of a flower, what dreams might we conjure for ourselves in the blackness of such vivid chaos? Perhaps, after all this time, man’s “certainty” has acted as little more than a safety blanket, one which has been fashioned to shield us from the void attempting to embrace us. Perhaps it in the frames of the Shakespeares, the Goyas, the Hamlets, that the fissures in the fabric are revealed, that we are given a glimpse--however brief---into a locked room, one where the screaming never stops. It’s something to think
This has always been, for it was not so long ago that strong-willed women were locked away in poorly-administered asylums, subject to inhumane stints of electroshock therapy and lobotomies alongside others of supposedly “mental” dispositions due their being more opinionated than their feminine peers; indeed, misdiagnosis and misunderstanding continue to plague our highly-learned modernity. By that same scent, the artistically and philosophically-minded have struggled since time immemorial to get to the nub of the concept of derangement, often to no avail; if they had proven able to do so, such a paper as this would be unwarranted in existing. Perhaps it is for the better, for if we could grasp such lunacy as we would the colors of a flower, what dreams might we conjure for ourselves in the blackness of such vivid chaos? Perhaps, after all this time, man’s “certainty” has acted as little more than a safety blanket, one which has been fashioned to shield us from the void attempting to embrace us. Perhaps it in the frames of the Shakespeares, the Goyas, the Hamlets, that the fissures in the fabric are revealed, that we are given a glimpse--however brief---into a locked room, one where the screaming never stops. It’s something to think