Madness and Insanity in Shakespeares Hamlet - The Pretended Madness of Hamlet :: Essays on Shakespeare Hamlet

The Pretended Madness of juncture Hamlet, knowing that he get out get into difficulty, needs to feign madness for the purpose of carrying out his mission. He rehearses his pretended madnesss first with Ophelia, for even if he should fail there in his act of simulation, that failure will not cause him any material harm. The manifestations of monomania that Hamlet will show become predictable - a sure sign that it is a simulated and not a objective insanity. When Hamlet is with a trustworthy friend, he is rational and symptom-free as currently as those persons appear, however, whom he wants to convince that he is mad, he changes his behavior so as to implant different explanations in their minds for his noticeable irrational behavior. With Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, he makes believe that the reason for it is frustrated ambition with the Queen and King, that it is their marriage that has confused him and with Polonius and Ophelia, that it is frustrated love that has driven him mad. These rapid and clumsy changes from rational reference with those he trusts to irrational conversation with those whom he wishes to impress are cockeyed evidence of fraud. In a character profile which I memorise by Max Huhner who has published several literary essays, Huhner reduces the problem of Hamlet to one factor, of the sort that Freud conceptualized as secondary gain in moral disease. Hamlet, says Huhner, could not hold his tongue or keep a secret, and was accordingly entirely unfitted for diplomatic work. In a sense his feigning insanity was his sole avenue of safety. It is along these same lines that I have assay to prove the reasonableness of Hamlets cruel dealings with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, justifying on grounds of working necessity and the desire to avoid risks the fact Hamlet arranged their movement without heir having had a chance to receive the assistance of the Church. I could add together my own character analysis of Hamlet as essentially a pi cture of an impractical man, who has nevertheless proceeded with optimal effect under subsisting external and internal conditions.