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

Hamlet's feigned madness and Ophelia's real madness - Essay Example 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 melancho ly 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,... The paper tells that 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. 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. 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.