Drama analysis of Hamlet - Essay Example

Hamlet feigns insanity to discover the truth, but might as easily be insane by the mere fact of seeing and talking with ghosts. While Hamlet at first seems to be insane, there are several ways, through both language and action, that Shakespeare works to demonstrate that there is a definite method behind Hamlet’s madness. Hamlet, is at first presented as an intelligent young man who is perhaps a little spoiled yet who knows his duty and has a bright future ahead of him, but who is also quickly linked with the idea of insanity.

From the beginning of the play, he is shown to be a man who is divided. His first spoken words in the play, “a little more than kin, and less than kind!” (I, ii), are spoken in an aside to himself, indicating the disdain in which he holds his uncle and mother, but could also be interpreted as the first signs of insanity as he is seen to be talking to himself. His next words, spoken to his uncle, “Not so, my lord. I am too much in the sun” (I, ii), demonstrate his ability to quickly turn a phrase upon itself.

While he is answering his uncle’s question about why the “clouds still hang” on him, he does not answer the question and instead makes a reference to being looked after too much by his uncle as well as too much considered a son. This tendency of his to always find a double meaning in any sentence is one of the first indications of insanity Shakespeare provides. In addition, Hamlet demonstrates an almost suicidal depression following his father’s death and his mother’s betrayal, only kept from that by his religious upbringing: “O that this too too sullied flesh would melt, / Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew, / Or that the Everlasting had not fixed / His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter” (I, ii).

Very early in the play we learn that Hamlet has lost all faith, all joy and all purpose in life. He cannot accept his