Hamlet

Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a most mysterious and complex character; his mind is the subject of more detailed psychoanalysis than any other character in English literature. It’s not often that readers come across a man who fakes madness, and ultimately plunges himself so deep into this artificial madness to a point of total metamorphosis into a new being.

"I am but mad north-northwest: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw" (II.ii.387-8). This is a classic example of the "wild and whirling words" (I.v.133) with which Hamlet hopes to persuade people to believe that he is mad. These words, however, prove that beneath his "antic disposition," Hamlet is very sane indeed. Beneath his strange choice of imagery involving points of the compass, the weather, and hunting birds, he is announcing that he is calculatedly choosing the times when to appear mad. Hamlet is saying that he knows a hunting hawk from a hunted "handsaw" or heron, in other words, that, very far form being mad, he is perfectly capable of recognizing his enemies.

Hamlet's madness was faked for a purpose. He warned his friends he intended to fake madness, but Gertrude as well as Claudius saw through it, and even the slightly dull-witted Polonius was su

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He reacts the way any hurt young rejected lover would.

Even Polonius can see that Hamlet has not completely lost touch with the world. As he explains to Horatio, his "antic disposition" is a device to test his enemies.

In the scene in his mother's bedroom, Hamlet tells Gertrude that his insanity is assumed: "It is not madness, that I have utter'd.

To convince everyone of his madness, Hamlet spends many hours walking back and forth alone in the lobby, speaking those "wild and whirling words" which make little sense on the surface but in fact carry a meaningful subtext.

Hamlet's soliloquies, his confidences to Horatio, and his elaborate plans are by far the most convincing proof of his sanity. He greets Ophelia sweetly, gets a little cold when he remembers that he has not seen her "for this many a day," is very hurt when she returns his remembrances, and becomes completely furious, insulting womankind in general, when she lies to him about her father's whereabouts and he realizes he is being spied on. While Hamlet is reprimanding her, she is so upset that she describes his words as "daggers" (III.

Approximate Word count = 1798
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

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