In the drama Hamlet, ideas have been formed to explain Hamlet's inability to avenge his father's murder. Such premises are that Hamlet is pretending to be emotionally disturbed and is secretly plotting to carry out his revenge and that Hamlet is so corrupted by grief that he is really insane and incapable of action.
             There are many instances that support the idea that Hamlet is pretending to be crazy in the play. The plot begins when Hamlet's father's ghost appears and charges him to avenge his murder by assassinating Claudius. Upon accepting this he makes his companions swear never to reveal what has taken place on that evening. He tells them, " As I perchance hereafter shall think meet/ To put an antic disposition on. (1.5.191-192)." This clearly reveals that Hamlet is planning to act insane so he can achieve his murder plot. Through the next act Hamlet quickly demonstrates to the other characters that he is mad by playing as the victim of a passionate love affair with Ophelia. Polonius even connects Hamlets madness to "the very ecstasy of love (2.1.114.)."
             However, when actually speaking in Ophelia's presence, Hamlet really seems to be unstable. Instead of simply convincing her he is mad, he insults her by saying "get thee to a nunnery (3.1.131)." and saying that he never loved her. Later in the play, at Ophelia's funeral procession, Hamlet professes that he loved Ophelia more than "forty thousand brothers could have loved her". An explanation to this incongruity rests on Hamlet's relationship with his mother. In the mind of Hamlet he is naturally unstable when dealing with women because he believes his mother betrayed his father's memory by marrying Claudius, the king's own brother, so soon after his father's murder. Hamlet is disgusted with his mother and condemns her for sin &
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