Hamlet to act crazy or to be crazy
In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, many of the characters throughout it are 'acting'. Rosencratz and Guildenstern pretend that their friendship with Hamlet goes beyond what they are being told to do by the king, Claudius acts like he is sad over his brother's death, Ophelia has to act like she does not want to see or talk to Hamlet anymore, and Polonius pretends to be Hamlet's friend. At the beginning of the play, Hamlet claims that he will begin to act insane as well. While it is believed that while he is pretending to go crazy that he is going insane, he actually holds on to his sanity throughout the play. While Hamlet displays a great deal of instability throughout majority of the play, his 'madness' has too much purpose behind it. When Hamlet finally has his conversation with Ophelia, after she decided they could not see each other again, he is acting like he is sane, but then begins to act crazy. But there is reason behind is lunacy, he knows what he is saying. He tells Ophelia, "Get thee (to) a nunnery", not only meaning a convent, but also a whorehouse. He knows what he tells her offends her, but Ophelia just thinks, "a noble mind is here o'erthrown" and that Hamlet has actually lost his mind. This is on
e of the most intense moments throughout the entire play, and although he appears to be standing on the edge between sanity and insanity, Hamlet actually has quite a good grasp on what is going on around him. Another one of the most powerful moments in the play is during the performance of the play within the play. Hamlet tells the players, "now this overdone or/come tardy off, though it makes the unskillful laugh, /cannot but make the judicious grieve, the censure/or (the) which one must in your allowance o'erweigh/a whole theater of others". His mind is troubled and he is put into a distressing situation, which makes him question everything in his life. His schooling cannot explain the ghosts, his family has been torn apart, and his love does not talk to him. Hamlet manages to make a fool out of Polonius by pretending there is a cloud while they are inside and Polonius replies with, "By th' Mass, and 'tis like a camel indeed". During the conversation with his mother, the ghost of his father appears again, only to remind him, "This visitation/is but to whet they almost blunted purpose", because Hamlet started to get carried away by hurting his mother with his words. She tells Hamlet that he has offended Claudius with the play and Hamlet simply replies with, "Mother, you have my father much offended". Hamlet's lunacy is a reasonable one, it is his way of being able to trick and baffle those that are attempting to plot against him and so he can cover up what he is actually doing. And although Gertrude thinks that the 'ghost' is, "the very coinage of [his] brain", Hamlet is not insane and tells his mother that he is not speaking madness. By pretending to be insane, Hamlet can easily trick others into acting like fools and strategically hide his objectives. If he were really going insane, Hamlet would most likely not notice that Rosencratz and Guildenstern were attempting to 'play' him in order to fulfill the King's requests. After the play and the run in with Rosencratz and Guildenstern, Gertrude wanted to speak with Hamlet. While Hamlet was having this scene with Ophelia, Claudius and Polonius were listening in on what was going on.
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