Hamlet's antic disposition. Is his madness feigned or real - Research Paper Example

The spontaneity of the act that he puts on seems, at a later stage, to have led commentators on the play to have thought that his was not an act in the first place. His disavowal of what later we realize was a true love for Ophelia, is one of the incidents in the play that are cited to damn Hamlet as insane. The vision of the ghost, some say, seems to be a vision of a madman, who has been deranged by the death of his father and what seems to him a betrayal by his mother. These, for some critics are also validated by his musings on the very nature of death during the graveyard scene.

Coupled with a suicidal tendency, these musings of one of Shakespeare’s most famous characters leads not an insignificant number of critics to believe that his state of mind is not one of sanity. All of these, however, can be refuted if one is to look at the play from another perspective. Hamlet, G. Wilson Knight says, presents an antithesis to what the Danish court stands for, life. Whether this is a result of his direct encounter with death is unclear. However, his musing on death and his rejection of Ophelia are instances where he rejects the vital activities of life.

He contemplates suicide, another instance of his revulsion for the life and vitality that are represented by the other members of the court. Knight affirms the essential righteousness of the aims of Hamlet. Deprived of his rights and parental love, Hamlet is morally superior to Claudius who has murdered his own brother out of love for the throne and for Gertrude. However, Hamlet remains in Knight’s words, a “negation of life” (Knight 187). It is this distance from vitality that places Hamlet in a position where he appears to be insane.

To make my point clearer, I shall make a reference to Michel Foucault’s theories of insanity. Foucault saw insanity as a deviation from the normal codes of society. It is, according to him, a means employed by the so-called ‘sane’ society to define itself, that is, it serves as a kind of touchstone for mainstream society (Foucault). Hamlet, here is such a severe contrast to the life-affirming but wicked Claudius and the majority of the other characters that are faithful to him, that he appears to be an aberration.

This has been construed as insanity by many. However, this would be to state that in some way or the other, Hamlet can be seen as a mad person. This does not present the facts in a true light. The standard, against which Hamlet’s behavior seems to be a deviation from the norm, is that of the Danish court. However, the moral values that Hamlet employs are those of Renaissance humanism (Kettle 238). Hamlet is a highly educated person. His values are shaped by the dominant ideology of the time, humanism, which talked about the ability of man to rise to infinite heights which were unthought-of before.

Seen in this context, the very pessimism that we had attributed to Hamlet seems to be an optimistic attitude that has seen through the facade of the Danish court. The baseness of the king and his followers rankles Hamlet, one who has recognized the infinite potential of man. What Marcellus unwittingly says about the condition of Denmark , Something is rotten in the state of Denmark (1.4. 90) is exactly what Hamlet feels about the state of his homeland. It is against this backdrop that Hamlet appears to be ins