Hamlet Madness And Madness

William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is one of his greatest plays. The protagonist Hamlet is a complicated character that many critics have discussed about a lot. A quick overview of the play Hamlet; Prince Hamlet learns about the death of his father and the immediate marriage of his mother, Gertrude to his uncle, Claudius. He notices Claudius is already crowned King in his absence. Hamlet later discovers that his father died an unnatural death, he was murdered by his own uncle. This discovery brings a lot of emotions to Hamlet and he vows to avenge his father’s death. The way Hamlet goes about his vengeance has made many critics question his sanity. Is his madness simply a deception or does truly become insane? Many scenes from the play show that Hamlet’s attitude was justified …show more content…
“In this story, the envious Feng, like Claudius, murders his brother Horwendil, and marries the widowed Gerutha”. Amleth, frightened of Feng, noticeably pretends to be mad (Bevington). The similarity between this story and Hamlet suggests that Shakespeare borrowed the idea of feigning madness from the story of “Amleth”. Another indication that Hamlet was only pretending to be mad is in Act 1 Scene 5, he says to Horatio "As I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on" (Shakespeare 1.5. 189-190). It was after this statement that Hamlet started acting mad. That proves that what he meant by putting on an “antic disposition” was that he was going to feign madness. He was therefore warning Horatio about his plan. Furthermore in an intense discussion with his mother, Hamlet also states his plan, "I essentially am not in madness, But mad in craft" (Shakespeare 3.4 207-208). Even some other characters start to have doubts and begin to wonder if Hamlet is truly insane. Claudius says to Polonius that Hamlet 's "actions although strange, was not like madness" (Shakespeare 3.1. 162-163). An analogy presented by Blackmore