Hamlet Madness Essay

Hamlet uses pretended madness as a plot for revenge, so that his intended victims wouldn’t suspect what he was up to before his big plan reveal. In Hamlet, the morality play, Hamlet is displayed as a madman. Polonius regards him as mad because of his rejected love from Ophelia. Ophelia declares him mad because he repelled and disgraced her love after confessing his love way before. There are also many other characters and situations that prove/claim he has been portrayed as being corrupted by madness. Evidence in the play shows that Hamlet’s madness wasn’t real and that it was just for show. Has Hamlet really been driven to madness or has he been acting mad for the attention and exposure of others?

Hamlet is just deliberately acting mad to agitate and confuse King Claudius, Ophelia, Queen Gertrude, Rosencratz, Guildenstern, and many others. Act 1 scene 5, Line 170-175 displays Hamlet informing his good friend Horatio, that in the near future he will find it appropriate to act mad, while briefly recalling the events with the ghost of his “father”. His admitted intention to act strange was noticed and demonstrated as a trick of antic disposition. Hamlet saw this as a way to gain access to interpret the time following the moment.

In act 2 scene 2, lines 627-632, Hamlet is convinced that the ghost of his “father” may really be the devil, trying to
The king uses this as a ploy to try and send Hamlet back to England so he doesn’t eventually have to give up his crown and what he now has as king. There was no need to believe that Hamlet’s madness was not real. To understand the madness in Hamlet, the reader will have to inspect that throughout this play, there are many other signs of madness other than just Hamlet’s. If Hamlet were thought to be really and truly mad, would his character have shown more stages, feeling, effects, and events in