The Concept of Madness in Hamlet by Shakespeare

Hamlet is a play written by Shakespeare. It is a tragic play, meaning that it has a pathetic ending rather than a happy ending. Betrayal, revenge, incest, immorality and true and contradictory insanity are the themes of Hamlet. In these themes, insanity is significant when Shakespeare is considered. Madness held a curious attraction for Shakespeare. He tried to understand the causes and treatment of melancholy and madness from medical books. He wrote about madness because of excessive or unrequited love, trauma or mischance, excessive intellectual stimulation or overwork, shock or religious torment. In Hamlet, Shakespeare wrote madness because of devastating losses in the characters’ lives, meaning that trauma, shock, or mischance might affect their sanity. In addition to this, he also wrote about the madness of excessive or unrequited love. Shakespeare handled the theme of madness in Hamlet by three characters, Hamlet, Ophelia, and Laertes.

Hamlet’s madness is handled as he acts mad first to fool people to find his father’s murderer, and after some time he really becomes mad. He begins to act mad because of her father’s ghost, telling Hamlet that he should find the murderer of him. Then, he begins to act as if he is really mad, leading people to talk and behave freely in front of him thinking he does not understand anything because he is mad. However, he is still sane because he makes his uncle watch the arranged play by himself about the death of his father, and understands that his uncle is the murderer. Later, he becomes really insane, for example he stabs Polonius, Ophelia’s father, through a curtain without checking, and he also talks with a skull. He is also a melancholic character, and becomes almost suicidal and even contemplates his own death. Polonius thinks that Hamlet is mad because of his love for his daughter, showing that Shakespeare thinks infatuation could be confused with madness. Shakespeare handled madness theme on Hamlet, and causes of his madness is because of loss of his father and revenge.

Secondly, Ophelia’s madness is because of loss of her father and her love. She was in love with Hamlet first, Hamlet were in love with her first but later on he rejects her, and that makes her melancholic. After Hamlet murdered Ophelia’s father, her psychology becomes worse and she is completely mad that she cannot even recognize her brother, Laertes. All of these situations leads her suicide and she drowns. Shakespeare repeats his perspective of madness and infatuation in here, she slowly becomes mad because of her love first, and then because of her father’s death. He also handled madness because of unrequited love and trauma. She does not act mad, instead she becomes really mad and cannot control it because of the trauma that her father’s death triggered. Shakespeare wrote about madness by Ophelia because of the unrequited love from Hamlet and the trauma after her father’s death.

Lastly, Laertes is the third character that Shakespeare wrote about the theme of madness. Laertes’ madness is about the revenge that he wants to take from Hamlet. First, Hamlet murdered his father, and that makes him go for the revenge of his father. After that, Ophelia, his sister, suicides because of Hamlet. These two events make Laertes obsessed to kill Hamlet and takes revenge of his father and sister. Laertes also does not act as he is mad, he is really mad and cannot control it. Instead, anger and revenge feelings control him and make him mad. He also shows signs of psychotic disorder; he is delusional that thinks Hamlet wants to kill him as well. All of these madness signs of Laertes show that Shakespeare handled the theme of madness on this character by his anger and revenge feelings for Hamlet.

To summarize, Shakespeare dealt with the subject of madness in Hamlet by three characters, Hamlet’s madness for revenge because of his father, Ophelia’s madness due to the death of her father and her loss of love for Hamlet, and Laertes’ madness for vengeance for his father and sister. Shakespeare also made Hamlet’s climax by the theme of madness. He was interested in madness and its causes and treatments, and he handled madness in Hamlet. The cause of these three characters’ madness are trauma and unrequited love. They also have a spot in common: a devastating loss of someone significant in their lives. For Hamlet, it is his father, for Ophelia, it is her father, and for Laertes, it is his father and his sister. In my view, Shakespeare wrote about these characters’ madness almost like a professional about psychology, making the causes and consequences of their madness reasonable.

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