In William Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet one of the most discussed subjects about it is Hamlet’s madness, which in some critics minds ruined the whole play and others believed it was the reason it is a very well known play. This is shown to be true when critics like T.S. Eliot state things such as, “so far from being Shakespeare’s masterpiece, the play is most certainly an artistic failure” (Eliot 3) and “Hamlet is dominated by an emotion which is inexpressible, because it is in excess of the facts as they appear” (Eliot 5) what Eliot is saying is that they the play was a failure because Hamlet was neither truly mad or feigned mad but rather because of the way he spoke and acted it was more of an emotional relief. Other critics thought the play showed Shakespeare’s “unrivalled genius” (Blackmore 1) in making such great plays.
One of these critics, Simon Blackmore, said that Hamlet was faking mad because “If Hamlet would went to a court for madness he would have been ruled sane because he showed no signs of dementia” (Blackmore 2) the point Blackmore is trying to prove with this quote is that Hamlet was never mad and that he just played the role of a madman perfectly. Most readers would notice that Hamlet’s madness is a central theme in the drama, but it is not the only theme, there is also his revenge, his love, and his morality. Some readers would even realize that all these themes are affected by one another. So to summarize what has been stated Hamlet’s madness fuels his revenge, ruins his love for Ophelia, and makes him realize his own morality.
Hamlet’s madness caused a lot of things to happen, but the one that is going to be mentioned first is how madness affected his love. In the play Hamlet is head over heels for Ophelia, who is the daughter of Polonius and sister to Laertes, but Ophelia’s father and brother do not approve of Hamlet because as Polonius states in the play that she is not good enough for him. Even through all this though Ophelia still has a love for Hamlet until he starts to fall into madness.
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A few great quotes to show this is when Ophelia said, “ungartered, and down-gyved to his ankle, pale as his shirt, his knees knocking together” (2.1.87-88) and “I did repel his letters and denied his access to me” what these quotes tell me is when Hamlet started looking and acting like a madman she then wanted no part of being with him because she believed what her father said about him now. Another thing that happens because of Hamlet’s madness is he accidentally kills Polonius which leads to Ophelia becoming truly mad and even kills herself which thens makes Hamlet become saddened and he even goes on to state, “I loved Ophelia: 40 thousand brothers could not-…do for her” (5.1.261-264) which shows he regrets not being there to possibly save her.
Hamlet’s madness also strengthen his revenge against Claudius. The reader can infer this because in the drama Hamlet does not act mad until he talks to the ghost who told Hamlet the Claudius killed Hamlet’s father, which means at that moment Hamlet came up with a revenge plan and the first part of the plan is to act mad which the readers know from when Hamlet says, “that one may smile and be the villain” (1.5.114) and “how strange or odd soe’er I bear myself…that you, at such time seeing me, never shall, with arms encumbered thus, or thus headshake, or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase” (1.5.188-193) which shows Hamlet’s inanities to illuminate Clauidus’ murder of Hamlet Senior and once Hamlet finds out he actually does it he will kill Claudius.
The problem with this is Hamlet does not actually kill Claudius until he is dying even though Hamlet had known the whole time Claudius killed his father it takes until Hamlet is dying to take action because he realized death was upon him and so it was then or never to get his revenge so Hamlet makes Claudius drink the potion which is also killing him and then he kills Claudius with a sword.
At the end of the play the reader has to ask the question, was Hamlet’s madness real or fake. Through the evidence presented his madness most likely is fake because there are several times when he would do things that a crazy person would not do. Some great examples are when Hamlet is talking to his mother and he drops the crazy act when talking to her and tells her the truth and also the way he act mad around only those who he does not trust. So the reader can concur that Hamlet was faking crazy which affected his revenge and his revenge fueled his madness, and his madness ended up destroying his love life because Ophelia did not love him anymore, and finally his madness and revenge made him realize his mortality and made him question if he was going to heaven or hell.
