Madness

concepts. Many of these concepts, or themes, attempt to show us as people how we should treat or think of others. For many, these lessons have been necessary to help initiate cultural reform, and, if they challenged societal norms, been considered madness. These outlandish morals typically tell society that something it is doing is wrong, such as mistreating people or holding unjustified prejudices against them. Such is the case with Benjamin Franklin’s, “Remarks Concerning the Savages of North…

Approximately 18.5% of adults in the United States population experience a mental illness in a given year (NAMI 1). Although this statistic can often vary, it is quite staggering. It was unclear whether or not Hamlet’s madness was truly real, but it greatly affected the content and the outcome of Hamlet. Not only was this a problem for Hamlet himself, but also for each character that encountered him and the kingdom that they were living in. Whether it was because they had to listen to his…

Madness Behind the Wheel While driving on the interstate, two women exchange foul words to each other after one of them abruptly cut the other off to avoid other slow drivers. This is just one instant out of many that display road rage. How many times have you lost your temper behind the wheel? What about rude gestures to the car behind you? Within the last three decades, road rage has become “the” term for aggressive driving within various areas including: the media, policy making, and…

goal, but it can also drive us into madness. Obsession has the potential to do the exact same things. Does this mean that love and obsession can be intertwined into something hysterical? F. Fitzgerald illustrates madness in The Great Gatsby through Jay Gatsby as he is obsessive and desires Daisy Buchanan to the point where she is the only thing he can think about, which shows that love has the potential to become insanity. Jay Gatsby is an example of madness through his obsession over Daisy…

In the Shakespearian play ‘Hamlet’, the portrayal of madness is one of the driving themes, which widely affects all characters and the main plot. The representation of madness is not only complex, but was cleverly planned out, as the madness between the characters are linked. Because of how intricate the play was written, there is much speculation to be made. There is a debate in the audience over whether Hamlet was truly mad or not - something that will likely never get a definite answer as…

composition is used in one way or another to develop the theme, and Hamlet and Ophelia are not exceptions to this. For Hamlet, on the one hand, Shakespeare intends to epitomize deception through this character, and the approach he uses is that of feigning madness. When someone pretends to be mad, there is a reason for the pretense. It might be surmised that the individual does so to escape their responsibilities, to avoid being incarcerated for a crime they might have committed, or simply to see…

person has a method to their madness that helps them succeed. Aristotle said, “There is no great genius without some touch of madness”. Throughout many works of literature madness can be seen in many characters and is used as a catalyst to help move the plot along. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad explores the journey of Marlow, a steamboat captain, journey into the heart of Africa, and the changing of his objective to meeting Kurtz when almost everyone glorifies him. Madness is commonly seen…

Socrates in Phaedrus by showing how love madness, usually thought to be a lack of reason led by the sexual desires of the liver, is a means of living a desirable life of philosophy, led by the reason-based desires of the brain. In telling the story of Democritus, Ancient Pseudo-Hippocrates, like Plato, displays his uncommon perception of madness and its relation to the practice of philosophy. Modern-day researchers, Paul Andrews and J. Anderson Thomson, who view madness not in terms of…

of these driving factors revolve around one key element, insanity and decent into madness. Shakespeare heavily relies on hallucinations and insanity to not only set the tone of the play, but to drive the actions of the main characters. Although many factors go into characterizing the protagonist of the play, -- the one with the most impact -- the one element that truly drives the play is Macbeth’s decent into madness. The shift in character from an honorable soldier…

As Hamlet’s story begins, we see that he consciously slips into madness; After some time, we can see that his hallucinations start getting more and more real, which we can assume as to him becoming actually mad. We could say that in his eyes, the means justified the ends, and he had his ends very clearly objectified, but as the progress of achieving the ends occurs, the ends became blurry and his actions insane, which lead me to believe he was a little.. off and, undoubtedly, depressed even…