Is Hamlet’s Madness Real or Feigned?

Hamlet’s madness, one of the complicated factors, renders understanding Hamlet’s character exasperatingly tricky. Hamlet assumes an ‘antique disposition;’ he pretends to be mad.

However, besides this deliberate assumption of the mask of lunacy, there is a reality. Hamlet is not an entirely sane man; at least in the play, we never find him completely sane.

On different occasions in the play, Hamlet behaves strangely and abnormally, unexpected of a man of sound mind. On the other hand, there is no apparent reason to assume the mask of madness.

Hamlet’s behavior strikes the audience as abnormal on several occasions. For example, Hamlet seems mad when he appears before Ophelia in disordered clothes. He behaves as if he has been loosed out of hell to speak of horror. Hamlet subsequently kills Polonius, and the harsh language he uses with Ophelia in the nunnery scene confirms that Hamlet has gone mad. Later on, when Hamlet jumps into Ophelia’s grave shouting about the amount of love—

“I love Ophelia

Forty thousand brothers could not with all their

Quality of love

Make up my sum.”

Hamlet, Shakespeare

Hamlet’s Odd Behavior Put Other Characters in Play in Confusion

Hamlet’s frantic behavior puzzles many other characters in the play itself. Polonius is from the beginning sure that it is his daughter’s love that has turned the prince mad,

“This is the very ecstasy of love,”

Hamlet, Shakespeare

Hamlet says at the end of the nunnery scene. Ophelia expresses her Confrontation at the tempestuous madness of Hamlet by saying;

“O, what a noble mind is here overthrown?

The countries, soldiers, scholars, eye, tongue, sword

The observed of all observers speech quite, quite town.”

Ophelia, Hamlet, Shakespeare

Evidence of Hamlet’s Sanity Is Also Overwhelming

On the flip side, there is overwhelming evidence to show that Hamlet is not mad.

At the beginning of the play, right after he has met and talked to his father’s ghost, Hamlet decides to assume the behavior of a madman.

When Marcellus and Horatio come to meet him, Hamlet bursts out in mad laughter, hence, hiding what has passed between him and the ghost.

Hamlet tells Horatio that he would put on an antique disposition and requests him not to ask any question if he behaves oddly in front of others. This shows that madness is a part of Hamlet’s strategy to befool his enemy Claudius and mislead him about the real cause of his trouble.

Hamlet Acts Mad Deliberately to Watch Over His Enemy

Hamlet, therefore, puts on the garb of a madman as a kind of defense mechanism. Under the mark of pretended madness, he would be able to observe his enemy without being detected.

When Hamlet is talking to Polonius in the lobby, Hamlet deliberately talks incoherently, but all the time, he is harping on a consistent subject. The situation in which Polonius and Hamlet converse are dubious.

Hamlet suspects that Polonius is in league with the king. Hamlet, therefore deliberately confuses the older man. Polonius also realizes that though this is madness, there is a method. When Polonius leads Hamlet on this occasion, Hamlet says,

“These tedious old fools concerning Polonius.”

Hamlet, Shakespeare

Thus, Hamlet was talking to Polonius in a pretended manner of insanity. Later on, Hamlet confesses to his school friend Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,

“I am but mad-not-north west when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.”

Hamlet, Shakespeare

Hamlet Falls between Sanity And Insanity

Nonetheless, it would be a travesty of truth to say that Hamlet is entirely sane. There are many occasions in the play when Hamlet’s madness is revealed unmistakably.

If Hamlet was not mad, he would not spare the king at his prayer or delay indefinitely in taking revenge or contemplating suicide in the first soliloquy.

So, Hamlet is not completely mad; he is not entirely sane either. His condition is somewhere between the two. One critic has aptly remarked that Hamlet’s condition is less than madness, more than feigned.

Hamlet’s thought processes are contaminated in such a way that he has a diseased vision of the world and humanity. He thinks that the whole world is full of evil in his deranged mind, and killing one Claudius could not solve the problem.

Final Thoughts

Hamlet suffers from a disease that modern psychotherapists call schizophrenia. His mind is split into two. The question of “To be or not to be” that troubles him is partly the result of his schizophrenic condition.

Although he pretends to be a madman on the conscious level, deep down his psyche, Hamlet is tainted with an incurable spiritual madness.

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