Brendan Murray
             English 4A Period 2
             William Shakespeare-Hamlet
             12-04-00
            
             William Shakespeare painted an ambiguous picture of a character with qualities of psychological disorder, unluckiness and an indecisive nature in the play Hamlet. The young prince Hamlet suffered from severe emotional distress after the death of his father, King Hamlet. His emotions were tortured further when his mother, Gertrude, married his uncle, Claudius, heir to the Danish throne. Throughout the play Hamlet could not sort out his feelings for his lover, Ophelia, nor come to any plan of action concerning the message from the ghost of his father. His obsession with death coupled with his indecisive nature caused his own downfall in the end. Hamlet's "madness", inability to act in a calm manner and his muddled views on death combined in a terrible chain of events leading to tragedy and death.
             At the outset of the play, Hamlet saw an apparition claiming to be his father. The ghost narrated the uncanny events that lead to Claudius's coronation as king. Apparently he killed King Hamlet in order to usurp his power and his family. Upon learning the news, Hamlet decided to purposefully act like a madman. Hamlet revealed this to Horatio and Marcellus when he said, "Here as before, never, so help you mercy,/ How strange or odd some'er I bear myself/ (As I perchance hereafter shall think meet/ To put an antic disposition on)/ That you know aught of me-this do swear/" (1.5.169-179) At this point, he must have been wild with rage and full of revenge. His purpose for acting mad was probably for the reason that he was mad anyway. Hamlet knew he had qualms with death, and the mission given him by his father's spirit was a daunting task. The sight of a recently deceased loved one as an ontologically different being gives reason enough for one to become mad. With all!
             the psychological stress, Hamlet knew that his beha...