The Madness of Hamlet

* Concept of Madness :

Let's consider the idea of madness first. If a person is mad his thought have no logical
connection. Also he has no aesthetic connection. They lack thinking ability. They have no good
reasoning faculty. They do not work consciously. In same have no morality in his actions. The lunatic
talks and acts without reference to reason and moral responsibility. The conscious control over
thoughts is absent in the case of a made person. Even felons and criminals cannot be called mad. A
mad person is not aware of the presence of his nears and dears. He does not recognize anybody. He
behaves like an alien among people. Now, if the features of madness are such as given above than
can we call Hamlet a mad person ? Hamlet is not a moral agent. Here play and hero can be inter
changed. We cannot give a credit to a hero with character as a mad person. We cannot say that play
does not signify anything. If the hero is mad what will others do. Character is the fulcrum of the
tragedy, particularly of Shakespeare.

* Comparison of Hamlet with his tragic heroes :

If we take away the role of fate with the character from Othello, Lear, Macheth, Iulius Caesar,
Antony and Cleopatra and they would cease to be tragedy. To say then that Hamlet is mad is to say
that the play is not a tragedy which fails to give the sense of imaginative release. It means that we
admit that the play is an artistic failure. But it is not so. It artistic failure. But it is not so. It runes very
well in the Elizabethan theaters and thus cannot be called an artistic failure.

* Cross – Examination of Sanity and insanity :

If one conclude that Hamlet is mad. His behavior should be examined up to what extent be is
mad. There are degrees of sanity or madness. One should be a bold critic to say whether Hamlet is
mad or not mad. In life people often act from sudden impulse. One can be a psycho-analyst while
judging him. In life people often act from sudden impulse but because of this one can't give him the
certificate of madness. There are some occasions where a same person behaves like an in same
person.

* View of Psycho :

Psycho analysis a part 'very few of us are without some little kink of the brain some tendency
to estimate this or that out of its due proportion in what the most of us allow to be an ordered
universe. Still very fewer of strong passions and affections – shall never on our way through. This
transitatary life be thrown off our balance by distress of mind or the shock of calamity.

* Shock :
 Hamlet hears the whole story of crime of his uncle. How his uncle mercilessly kills his father.
His nerves were disturbed, he could not believe the Ghost. He could not trust the Ghost, he thought
it impossible for a brother to kill his own brother and marrying his wife within very short time. On
one side there an pardonable crime and on the other side there is last. This shocking news brings
him on the berder of insanity. In this position of nervous – break – down also Hamlet retains and
controls him-self. He tells his close friend Harotio-

Yes, by saint Patrick, but there is, Haratio

And much of offence too.

* Hamlet's control over his mind :

In the crucial condition after coming to know the reality of his uncle, he controls himself and
tells Marcellus the other story. He tells him that he talked to the underground demon and not his
father. He acts as a mad man before Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. He did not make even
a single mistake in dealing with them as a madman. In the bedroom scene he slakes on his mother.
The unreasonably merry. He gets angry.

* Soliloquies :

Hamlet melancholy overwhelms him. Yet hamlet's oscillatory temper sometime makes us
doubtful but his soliloquies clears our doubts. The soliloquies, which are his self communing, express
a sensitive and wide-awake moral consciousness. In fact, the most pronounced trait of hamlet. We
had almost said, prernaturally-quick sense of night and wrong. The whole tragedy springs from it in
no small measure is it the cause of his inaction.

* Balanced Mind :

When hamlet speaks about himself to haratio just before the staging of the cronzago play his
his clear vision self-knowledge is sanity itself :

Give me than man

That is not passion's slave,

And I will wear him

In my heart's core, aye,

In my heart of heart
 As I do thee.

And the balanced mind that distrusts effusiveness of expression shows itself in that delicate
touch –

Something too much of this –

Again let's consider the way he welcomes the players. He gives the judicious instruction to the
actors about how they aught to act. He gives the warn welcome he extends to his old school mates
before he sees their cloven hoofs, or the continuous and logic manner in which he fools them.

* Decisive Power :

On having decided to tent the conscience of the king' he very tactfully, steadily and successfully
carries out the design yearning for the ideals, and filled with a divine discontent, he has pondered
the divine discontent, he has pondered the congregated evils of society – 'the candied tongue. that
licks absurd pomp.' If bedroom scene is considered the balanced his emotions and passions, anger
and patience. He insults Ophelia believing her to be involved in conspiracy against him as he saw
Claudius and Polonius outside.

* Hamlet's Sanity :

The evidence of Hamlet's madness comes from his own mouth, when he apologies to laertes
before the fencing match.

Who does it, then ?

His madness : if it be so,

Hamlet is of the faction

that is wronged.

The speech itself be speaks the most luminous sanity. It measures the moral gulf that separates
Hamlet's greatness of soul from laertes smallness. Also, he doesn't kill his uncle while he is in prayer.
He forgives his mother because of his father's insistence. If we talk about reality it won't be so easy
to taskle with the person who killed our father. Hamlet deals very patiently with his uncle. Who
made his mother whore. In life, we often hear quick – tempered men.

* Quick Temper :

In life, we often hear quick-tempered men apologizing to those whom they have wronged by a
sudden flare up in some such words as Hamlet himself uses in the play : 'I am sorry. I must have
been mad when I spoke those words'. Do we take the apology as evidence of the speaker's madness
? If not, how can we do such a thing in the play. Dr Bradley, the critic says 'what other defense can
we wish Hamlet to have made. I can think of none. He cannot tell the truth. He cannot say to
Laertes, 'I meant to stab the king, not your father'. He has no choice. He has no evidence. He has
nothing except the Ghost of his father. None but be could see. He is helpless. He has no way to go.
'He cannot explain why he was uinking to Ophelia. Even on the false supposition that he is referring
simply to his behavior at the grave, he can hardly say ….. 'you ranted so abominably that you put me
into a lowering passion'. What ever he said, it would have to be more or less untrue'.

* As Psychologist :

How could Shakespeare have made Hamlet speak like a psychologist made him say that he
passed months in a life – weary mood in which his nerves were over wrought and his emotions were
likely to be violently swayed by self-reproaches; and that he was outraged by Laertes' playing-acting
over Ophelia's grave ? But, one can argue that we have a definite sign of madness in Hamlet's wild
appearance in Ophelia’s closet. It shows the extremely of dejection and despair, and he makes a
mute heart-rending appeal for sympathy from are he loves. The very fact that he comes to Ophelia
in his hour of torment shows the sanity that underlies his distraction.

* Brutality :

In extreme dejection and despair Hamlet behaves brutally with Polonius then his mother and
to Ophelia. His, brutal behavior to her when, at her father's command, she consents to play the
decay on her lover her ideal knight 'the glass on her lover her ideal knight 'the glass of fashion and
the mould of from ; with

'The courtier's, Soldier's, Scholar's eye, tongue sword;

Whom she has 'repulsed' are we sure that it is a sign of madness ? This type of insanity can be
seen in psychic characters of Ram Gopal verma's movies. 'Aparichit' also has this type of character.

* Ophelia's Conduct :

Ophelia returns his gifts and treats him to a speech. She has conned, it which she pretends to
be the offended party. No wonder, that Hamlet, his mind affected by a violent loathing against all
womanhood, ramps at her as a all womanhood, ramps at her as a type of Fraility whose name is
woman. We pity the poor, witness Ophelia, and we could not forgive. Hamlet's treatment of
savagery towards her, but it cannot make us doubt his sanity.

* Reason for acting as mad :

 Hamlet, the young prince of Denmark is gentle, scholar, gifted with good intellectual abilities to
judge the right and wrong. When he it told about his father's death when he it told about his father's
death and his uncle's crime. He decides to investigate the matter. He acts according to his
personality and decides to know whether Ghost of his dead father is his own illusion or not. As
educated and scholar person do determines to probe into matter step by step. He tells other guards
that it wasn't his father's Ghost whom he talked to. He reveals everything to his best. friend Horatio.
Horatio remained faithful to him till the end. As per his plan he acts as if he is mad. He treats Ophelia
and his mother badly. He kill Ophelia's father in frenzy believing him to be the king listening to the
mother and son. In the bed chamber seen one could really take him to be seen one could really take
him to be mad and Polonius might have called for help. In the nunnery scene also one could see him
as a mad person. Ophelia thought him to be mad as she stopped meeting him but the real cause is
the shock given to him by his nears and dears. He was suffering alone. He could not reveal his
sufferings to others. People of the kingdom loved him dearly so he cannot take any action in haste.

On the other hand how can people believe about the crime of Claudius without any base.
Hamlet used his intellect but it took too much time in proving the king criminal. Hamlet lost a
fatherly figure polonius. He lost his two school mates. He himself had too suffer a lot. He remained
depressed.

Instead of all these hard work he could have killed Claudius, then Ophelia, polonius, Leartes,
Gertrude, his two classmates could be alive but then the form of drama couldn't be tragedy.

Hamlet's act of pretension of and his over confidence lead him to destruction of many lives
including his own.

Hamlet's famous speech in Act- II

"What a piece of work is a man !

How noble in reason, how infinite

In faculty, in form and moving,

How expressive and admirable,

In action how like an angel,

In apprehension how like god,

The beauty of the world,

The paragon of animals ! "

Now, how can we call, this tragic hero of shakespare made ? The playwright has projected
many philosophical speeches in his mouth.