Madness In Macbeth And Hamlet
Madness seems to be a common theme in William Shakespeare’s plays, Macbeth and Hamlet. The questions I ask myself are; 1. What brings about madness in these plays, and 2. How can one tell madness when he/she sees it in a Shakespearean play? The signs of madness are visible in both of these plays by William Shakespeare,
After Hamlet has discovered the truth about his father, he goes through a very traumatic period, which is interpreted as madness by readers and characters. With the death of his father and the hasty, incestuous remarriage of his mother to his uncle, Hamlet is thrown into a suicidal frame of mind in which "the uses of this world" seem to him "weary, stale, flat, and ...
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driven crazy by thought. Hamlet's behavior throughout the play, especially towards Ophelia is inconsistent. He jumps into Ophelia's grave, and fights with Laertes in her grave. He professes "I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers/Could not, with all their quantity of love,/ Make up my sum" [HV, I,250-253], during the fight with Laertes in Ophelia's grave, but he tells her that he never loved her, when she returns his letters and gifts, while she was still alive. Hamlet subtly hints his awareness of his dissolving sanity as he tells Laertes that he killed Polonius in a fit of madness [HV, II, 236-250] Once Ophelia meets Hamlet and speaks with him her love abandons him. Hamlet realizes that his mother and stepfather are aware of this love and might use this to end his threat. Hamlet must end their thoughts of using Ophelia to rid him of his condition. To do this he must destroy all the current feelings Ophelia has for him and he does so very well, perhaps too well. Either his ...
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do in this frustrated state is to lash out with bitter satire at the evils he sees and then relapse into suicidal melancholy. Hamlet has mood swings as his mood changes abruptly throughout the play. Hamlet appears to act mad when he hears of his father's murder. At the time he speaks wild and whirling words: "Why, right; you are I' the right; And so, without more circumstance at all, I hold it fit that we shake hands and part…" [HI, V, 127-134]. After Hamlet kills Polonius he will not tell anyone where the body is. Instead he assumes his ironic matter, "Not where he eats, but where he is eaten. / A certain convocation of political worms a e'en at him." [HIV, III, 20-21] In the two ...
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"Madness In Macbeth And Hamlet." Essayworld.com. January 14, 2007. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Madness-In-Macbeth-And-Hamlet/58680.
"Madness In Macbeth And Hamlet." Essayworld.com. January 14, 2007. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Madness-In-Macbeth-And-Hamlet/58680.
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