Hamlet

“Who’s there?” (Shakespeare 7) Two simple words never have had such an impact on a drama, until Hamlet.   The words can be taken lightly, as just an opening to a play, or they can be looked at from another light. Each character in this drama, when analyzed, always seems to be someone else. Who is really who in this play? Some scholars believe that during the play, the character of Hamlet goes crazy, if not insane. So now, let’s play devil’s advocate and assume that Hamlet didn’t actually go crazy and that he was just putting on an act for everyone. Analyzing the character of Hamlet and how he interacts with other protagonists can help better prove if Hamlet really was crazy. What were the prince of Denmark’s motives for acting this way? Or, the better question, was Hamlet acting crazy to keep himself from actually going crazy? (Blatty).
The definition of insanity is a “mental illness of such a severe nature that a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality” (Hill). Yes, Hamlet does show a few times where he may have “slipped” into insanity, but who could blame him? He found out his father was murdered by his uncle, his mother married his uncle only four months after his father’s death, he saw his father’s ghost and must get revenge on his uncle, and he is drove away his one true love; that’s enough to drive anyone mad. As a prince, he has to act crazy in order to get away with most of his actions. Just as Claudius was concerned with his image, Hamlet is also royalty and has to be careful as to how he tries to get revenge for his father.
The way he acted toward Polonius was very sarcastic. Polonius believed he knew the reason for Hamlet’s insanity; Hamlet fell madly in love with Ophelia and because he told Ophelia to stay away from him, Hamlet went mad. In Act 2; scene 2, Polonius and Hamlet spoke with one another. Hamlet’s tone was very sarcastic and he made it seem as though he really was crazy. Polonius thought that, “though this be madness, yet there is...