Hamlet's feigned madness and Ophelia's real madness - Essay Example

? Introduction The difference between Hamlet and other plays about revenge is that, in Hamlet the viewer never sees the revenge happening. The play does not show the audience the expected; rather it continually postpones the revenge of Hamlet. The delay is because Hamlet attempts to gain more certain knowledge concerning what he is doing. In Hamlet, certainty together with emotions, psychology and ethics affect actions. Hamlet himself seems to doubt the notion that it is probable act in a purposeful and controlled way. He prefers to act violently, blindly and recklessly when he chooses to do so. Madness, both feigned and real is the foundation of the play. The antic disposition of Hamlet has famously ignited a scholarly discussion. The argument is whether Hamlet is truly mad or just acting. Hamlet’s madness is among the various unanswered questions that the play raises, an impossible mystery. All the same, the intricacy and sheer uncertainty of Hamlet's mental state and inconsistent behavior is undeniable and appears to speak to the overall doubt and uncertainty atmosphere of the play. The clear descent of Ophelia into madness, and later drowning, is fairly of a dissimilar issue. Critics agree that Ophelia goes mad due to the constant abuse from Hamlet. She cracks under the burden of patriarchal forces that has significant implications for the portrayal of sex and gender in the play. Hamlet Hamlet was university student who left his studies after the death of his father. According to the context, he is contemplative and philosophical. What draw him are the questions that lack answers or are hard to answer with certainty. He has the urge to prove his uncle’s guilt before he takes his revenge on him. Questions concerning the afterlife also plague him and other unanswerable details concerning suicide. Although he is thoughtful to the level of obsession, Hamlet also acts impulsively and rashly. His behavior is with unexpected swiftness and without any premeditation, for example, when he kills Polonius by stabbing him through a curtain without any evidence of his identity. It is clear that he very easily steps into a lunatic’s role, behaving unsteadily, being offensive towards the other characters with his pointed insinuation and uncultivated speech. Hamlet displays a number of weird behaviors during the play. He defies the ghost orders of killing Claudius for a number of reasons (1.1.12). According to the Roman and Greek revenge tragedies, it is unusual to kill a king and spare the queen. Hamlet does not have enough anger in him to revenge for murder, but he angers it with enough compassion to spare his mother’s incest actions. He delays inflicting and suffering death because posing on death’s edge guides him to a sequence of highly illuminating insights and moments that he shares with the audience. Hamlet wants to be sure that Claudius is completely guilty before he decides to revenge his father’s death. He unfortunately gets proof that happens to be a trap (1.5.40). Claudius arrest Hamlet and takes him out of the country. When Hamlet finally decides to commit the act, he ends up killing the wrong man by the name Polonius (4.1). It is significant to note that Hamlet is particularly discontented and melancholy with Denmark’s state of affairs and in his family. He feels betrayed and disappointed that his mother married his uncle so early after his father dies. His words, when talking about his mother, frequently indicate his distrust of and repulsion with women generally. During various scenes in the play, he considers dying and contemplates suicide. Nevertheless, regardless of all of the things with which Hamlet admits dissatisfaction, it is noteworthy that he should think about these issues only in philosophical and personal terms. The madness that Hamlet displays starts as anguish for his father’s death. Out of distress, he wishes that his flesh would melt and turn into dew. He undergoes many emotions when his mother chooses to marry Claudius, which at the time seemed like incest. Clearly, he experiences suicidal thoughts that register some emotional and mental unsteadiness. The madness experienced by Hamlet does not reflect the true madness of Ophelia, in any way. What contrast his madness are his actions. He also portrays madness when around certain characters only. Hamlet's madness is only apparent when he is in the presence of certain characters. Other characters admit that it is hard to know if the actions of Hamlet portray insanity or not. However, Claudius declares that Hamlet's actions may be strange, but they do not stalk from madness. Ophelia is the daughter of Polonius. She is beautiful, young, innocent and the future wife to Hamlet. Ophelia has very good traits of obedience and respect towards his father and brother. The problem is that she is naive and her father uses this to make her spy on Hamlet. Apart from that, she is sweet, sensible and cares about nature. Even after getting mad, she continues to sing songs regarding flowers. The madness that we see from Ophelia is real in every aspect. Her relationship with her father hinders all civil association involving the court, Hamlet, and herself. When the doting affection of Hamlet confronts the conflict of her father, she is incapable of coping with reality (1.2.43). The overbearing relationship that she had with her father is what caused her such a premature death, including her father’s own death. The degree to which Hamlet believes his mother betrayed him is far more obvious with the entry of Ophelia into the play. He eventually directs the rage that he has for his mother towards Ophelia (1.3.31). He believes that Ophelia is hiding her true nature behind an impeccability disguise. She felt unworthy because of how Hamlet treated her, and rather than undergoing public defame, she goes mad. She sang songs and gave away flowers with coded messages inside them. Guildenstern and Rosencrantz help in determining the true nature of Hamlet’s actions. The two are former friends of the good prince from Wittenberg. They play the role of determining the reason for Hamlet behaving strangely (2.2.36) when Gertrude and Claudius summons them to find out the cause of the prince’s 'madness’. Conclusion Although the erratic behavior by Hamlet begins as an antic disposition, his mind state declines throughout the play’s course to a point where it would be precise to consider him mad. It is not a mistake that it is impossible for the audience to know the real mental state of Hamlet. The uncertainty of the audience reflects the common doubt and ambiguity that characterizes the whole play. It is also obvious that the madness experienced by Ophelia is real because of her behavior and tragic death in the end. Work Cited Thompson, Ann and Taylor, Neil. Hamlet. London: Arden, 2006. Print. Read More