William Shakespeare 's Hamlet, The Young Prince Of Denmark Essay

In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the young prince of Denmark is faced with many conflicting events that affect his psychological mindset. After spending the majority of his life under his father’s shadow, his father’s sudden death is traumatic and leaves Hamlet to ponder on his own under the influence of the new King of Denmark, his uncle Claudius. The unraveling events that occur in the tragedy trigger the prince of Denmark’s turn to insanity and leave us questioning whether or not his grip on reality is present. Throughout the many soliloquies, episodes of hysteria, and cries for help, it is revealed that it is not clinically proven that the prince is mentally insane; he is just trying to cope with all of the traumatic events surrounding him.
What really defines a crazy person, and how can we tell that the person is actually mentally incapacitated? For starters, in order to diagnose a mental illness, symptoms and signs must be present. In Hamlet’s case, the signs and symptoms that were present were all just a front that was put on in order to find out the truth about Hamlet’s father 's death. “I perchance hereafter shall think meet, to put on an antic disposition on,” (Hamlet 8) is what Hamlet tells Horatio in a meeting after speaking with the ghost. Hamlet willingly tells Horatio that he is going to be acting strange and to just ignore it, which in fact is something a mentally insane person would never relapse on. We also encounter other moments where Hamlet willingly…