How To Stand Trial In Hamlet

Today, your honour, I stand before the courts to appeal for justice for my client, the young Prince Hamlet who is accused of murdering our Principal Secretary of State, Polonius, in cold blood. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the prosecution have presented a flimsy case against the prince; most significantly they failed to mention the fact that my client, Hamlet, may indeed have been clinically insane at the time of the Principal Secretary of State’s murder. If my client is found to be unable to stand trial on the grounds of insanity, then he should be cleared of all charges and taken into care until such time that his mental health is restored.

Your honour, one must only have to briefly overlook the actions and behaviours of Hamlet from
Hamlet felt his mother had betrayed her first husband and was sickened by the thought of the incestuous behaviours she was engaging in with Claudius, Hamlets uncle. Conclusive evidence of this torment has been presented to the court. Upon the arrival of Horatio, Hamlet’s only friend, Hamlet asked Horatio why he had returned from Wittenberg. Horatio tells Hamlet that he came to see the King Hamlets funeral and Hamlet quotes: “I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow student; I think it was to see my mother’s wedding…Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral backed meats.” By this, your honour, Hamlet conveys his utter disgust and anguish at the speed in which his mother remarried after her first husband passed. These feelings would certainly have had an impact on the later events that Prince Hamlet was involved
After Hamlet sullenly agrees to shed his ‘nighted colours’ and not to resume his studies at Wittenberg, he is left alone in the chambers where it appears he ponders his thoughts and feelings. “O! That this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew; or that the Everlasting had not fix’d his canon against self-slaughter!” It is clear that Hamlet contemplates suicide or self slaughter, something only a person in the depths of depression might consider. Your honour, do you believe any sane being would expose such dire and dark inner feelings with such ease and confidence? Later, ladies and gentlemen, Hamlet was recorded, again on security footage, voicing his dismal and bleak outlook. He said: “To be, or not to be; that is the question: Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles. And by opposing, end them? To die: to sleep: no more; and, by a sleep to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, ‘tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.” Your honour, the mental state of young Prince Hamlet is clearly in doubt to the point where suicide and an eternal sleep is all his minds eye can