Throughout the novel we are left to question
whether Hamlet is actually insane or is his cleverness and revengeful behavior painting
him out to be that way. Shakespeare provides us with many different scenarios
for that question to come up. Can Hamlets obsession over seeking revenge turn
him mad, or, is it all an act?
At the end of the fourth
act, it is safe to say that the real person insane in the novel is Ophelia. She
portrays the characteristics of insanity more than Hamlet ever has. Ophelia
causes self-harm, she fails to connect the past and present, lastly, she
drowns; as she is drowning, she begins to sing. These are the characteristics
of insanity, and Hamlet has failed to present these traits in the novel. I
believe that Hamlet’s whit, cleverness, and thought of revenge is driving him
to make such rash decisions, not because he is actually going insane.
To
begin with, some may argue that when he was talking to his best friends Guilderstein
and Rozendrieks after finding out about their secret promises to the king, he was
going insane. The explanation for that would be the simple fact Hamlet is much
smarter than them. He then decides to use this to his advantage. Although he
goes off topic during the conversation, he knows that they lack the
intelligence to fully grasp what he is saying. By this, the two friends had
nothing to report back to Claudius as to why Hamlet was behaving the way he
was.
To
add, some also argue that when Hamlet brutally murders Polonius without
remorse, it shows the final decline of his mental state. Personally, this just
shows that the hatred for Claudius is strengthening, causing him to destroy
everything that tries to intervene. Hamlet believed that Polonius was Claudius
behind the curtain. When he found out otherwise, Hamlet did fail to feel sympathy
for the life he had taken. This does not categorize him for being insane.
Hamlet has bigger problems that he has to face than to care about someone who
showed no compassion for him in return.
To
summarize, Hamlet insanity is obviously feigned. He is keeping in touch with
the present and is also making wise decisions throughout the novel. Someone who
is going mad would lose concentration of the task, and possibly end up like
Ophelia, dead. Hamlet may be making irrational decisions but this is because he
is a young prince with a lot to deal with. His father is dead and his ghost
keeps reaching out to him, his uncle killed his father, his mother married his
uncle, Ophelia cuts him off, his best friends betray him, and he has a task
that he is unsure he can fulfill. To me, this is a boy with a lot going on, concluding
his “insanity” to be feigned.
