Hamlet Insanity (Essay Sample)

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Hamlet Insanity
Hamlet is one of the popular tragedies by William Shakespeare. It tells the tale of a king that was murdered by his wife. The tragic killing of the king occurred based on a plan masterminded by his brother, Claudius. The king later appears as a ghost to his son to reveal the truth surrounding his tragic and untimely death and the inevitable need for revenge. Hamlet is shocked by the revelations but is quick to consider a plan to avenge his father. Additionally, since the interaction with his father’s ghost, Hamlet is captured as a mad person who foregoes his sanity and status for a price. Revenge and Hamlet’s madness are primary themes in Act and serve as bases for an intricate understanding of the tragedy. A son is involved in avenging the death of his father and tainting to the family’s name. He learns about a tragic and ill intended murder of the king, by two selfish persons, including his mother and uncle. On the other hand, the manifestation of madness in the story demonstrates the extent of urgency and aggressiveness that was needed to execute revenge. Hamlet had to supersede his rationality and sanity to react to the call by his father’s ghost. There are also divided opinions regarding the nature of Hamlet’s madness as deliberate or a reflection of harm to his identity and psychological health. However, as evidenced by the methodical turn of events in the play, Hamlet’s madness is feigned as a strategic way of suppressing his feelings and elevating his aggressiveness towards avenging the murder of his father, the king. 
Act One introduces Hamlet's impending revenge ad exposure to his greatest mission. Before his interaction with a ghost, Hamlet, and every other person, apart from the perpetrators of his father’s death, believed the act had been an accident. Hamlet was prepared to be at peace with his father’s death until he interacted with a ghost who changed everything. The ghost introduced himself to Hamlet, saying, “I am thy father’s spirit, Doomed for a certain term to walk the night and for the day confined to fast in fires Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature. Are burnt and purged away” (Shakespeare, Lines 12-17, pg. 57). The statements made different revelations about Hamlet’s father, the king’s death. The indication of revenge and the inevitable search for justice is based on the ghost statement that there would be no rest until justice was delivered. The statement has received multiple scholarly interpretations, which are uniquely aligned with the inevitable quest for justice. One of the scholarly reviews to the Hamlet’s experience indicates that “because his awful uncle is king instead of Hamlet, and the uncle has married his mother, so that Hamlet has now become the son of his awful uncle; because his uncle turns out to have murdered his father, and his mother has married the murderer” (Knapp 650). The statement meant that Hamlet had to intervene for his father by fighting for his dignity and punishing the betrayal caused by Hamlet’s mother and uncle. Being mad is an indication of loss of identity and value, yet is established as both strategic and