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  • Essay / The Question of Hamlet's Madness

    Madness is defined as doing something over and over again and expecting a different result. In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hamlet, young and not yet fully mature, could be considered mad. However, even if he says and does things that are out of the ordinary, he doesn't always do the same thing expecting a different result. It stands to reason that he rants about crazy things that may not be true, and he expresses his own personal opinions that are slightly deranged, but he's not crazy. Hamlet is a man who is going through a very difficult and heartbreaking time in his life, and he is just trying to get through the present moment. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay. Hamlet is distraught over his father's death, as any other son or daughter would be. A human being is not expected to recover from a family death without having some angry outbursts or difficult times, as Hamlet's text says: "But two months' death, or not so much , not two. Such an excellent king” (1.2 142-143). As Hamlet says here, his father, the king, was a great man. It hasn't even been two months and people expect him to forget about death and carry on like everything is fine. Before this quote from Hamlet, as we have just shown, he was in the castle meeting room where a new king was giving orders. This new king happened to be Hamlet's uncle, who shows no mercy in the face of the original king's death. The text shows that Claudius, the new king, shows no remorse when he says: "But you must know that your father lost a father, that this father lost, lost his, and that the survivor is bound by a filial obligation for a while to cause sorrow. But to persist in stubborn condolence is a course of ungodly stubbornness. (1.2 93-98). Claudius provides no help and shows no sympathy towards Hamlet in this difficult time of need. He simply says that Hamlet is a selfish child and needs to move on. With all of this placed on Hamlet and the pressure to forget his father, who was a great role model, it is not surprising that Hamlet would act in this situation. Hamlet's mother Gertrude marrying Claudius greatly affects her son. This could be one of the worst things that could happen in Hamlet's life after his father's death. As stated in the previous paragraph, Hamlet needed someone to mourn his father's death with, but instead his mother marries his father's murderer. Hamlet's accumulated hostility impacts the way he speaks to others. He says his mother "calls virtue a hypocrite, takes the rose from the beautiful brow of innocent love and puts a light bulb there, makes marriage vows as false as dice oaths." (3.4 51-54). Hamlet mentions in a very sarcastic way that his mother betrayed his father by having this disgusting marriage. Gertrude simply wasted the love she had shown Hamlet's father for many years. Hamlet essentially calls his new marriage false and unacceptable. Now that this marriage has taken place, Claudius has invaded the castle lifestyle and entered Hamlet's life in a violent and uncomfortable manner. All of these changes can lead someone to act differently and want to speak out about the wrongdoing of someone at fault. Hamlet wants to condemn Claudius for the murder of his father, and many think he is crazy for this. Hamlet is simply trying to prove here in this text that Claudius is a fake, and more so, a murderer. "He poisons her in the garden for his domain... You will soon see how the murderer obtains the love of the wife of.