Is Hamlet Crazy?
The very essence of man with his great and low passions, beauty and ugliness, bright and gloomy features, virtue and sophisticated evil found its reflection in all the contradictory fullness in the works of Shakespeare. It seems that Shakespeare’s characters are woven of contradictions, demonstrating the world of the master who has created them. Observing Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, it can be said that only a true humanist who found food for his creations in the spiritual world around him could create such a complete world and portray the entire spectrum of human passions in one piece of writing. In such a way, the reality of the play is so deep that neither the prince nor the reader will ever know the full truth about what happened, while still being able to speculate about a lot, including the truth of the insanity of Hamlet.
To begin, it is important to note that the question of Hamlet’s madness took a significant place in the play. It was natural to assume that the misfortunes that befell a young man caused insanity. However, evaluating this statement, it becomes obvious that this issue is rather disputable and needs further research and exploration. According to Welsh’s idea, Hamlet’s madness is imaginary (Welsh, 2001). Such a fact can be acknowledged by Hamlet’s words addressed to his friends after meeting with the Ghost. It was a scene, when Hamlet explains to his friends that sometimes he will look like a mad person and asks them to swear that they will react to this madness similar to manifestation of some quirks. Interpreting these words, it follows with all clarity that Hamlet’s madness is a mask that he puts on himself. However, contrasting this idea, “in The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud interpreted Hamlet’s madness in terms of Oedipus complex (Bali, 2014).
Arguing the event described above, an additional thing to research is hidden in the last scene of the first act. This scene can be hardly explained and interpreted because it is psychologically difficult to explain how Hamlet could make the decision to pretend to be insane in a so fast way after meeting with the Ghost (Walker, 1948). Judging by the further events presented in the play, the decision was made deliberately, but there was no time for this decision on the night of the meeting with the Ghost.
Exploring the play with many details, it can be said that many components were intertwined in this tangle of human passions and gave this play a huge scale. Shakespeare showed that loyalty and frivolity in love, betrayal in politics, hatred, cold-blooded calculation, emaciated madness, jealousy, blind rage revenge, envy and generous forgiveness, hypocrisy and profligacy, greed and avarice, as well as generous generosity might help readers to understand the main characters better. Taking into account such a multifaceted context, we are again confronted with one of the conventions of Shakespeare’s drama. Unlike the later dramas, when spectators were confronted with mysteries and riddles, Shakespeare prepared the audience for what would happen. The words of Hamlet serve just such a purpose. Therefore, the viewer, informed by Shakespeare, knows that Hamlet seems crazy, but the people around the hero do not know the truth (Welsh, 2001).
To illustrate this fact additionally, when Hamlet explains to Horatio, what virtues he values in him, the prince abruptly stops speaking when he sees the approach of the king and the court’s representatives:
They are coming to the play. I must be idle (act III, scene 2, 90).
It seems everything is clear. However, it is impossible to hide one place where Hamlet speaks about his frenzy otherwise. Before starting a “friendly” duel with Laertes, Hamlet pleads guilty to the murder of Polonius:
And you must needs have heard, how I am punish’d
With sore distraction. What I have done…
Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.
Who does it, then? His madness. If’t be so,
Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong’d;
His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy (act V, scene 2, 220 – 230).
These words can be taken for truth only having forgotten that Hamlet says them in the presence of the king and the whole court. While Claudius is alive, the goal of Hamlet is not achieved, so he continues to play the insane, only occasionally regaining consciousness. The recognition of Hamlet is only a tactical move. Plunging into the historical context of the play, it should be added that the madness of the main hero was not initially invented by Shakespeare. It was already mentioned in the ancient saga about Amleth and in its French retelling at Belfort (François de Belleforest). However, under the pen of Shakespeare, the character of Hamlet’s pretense has changed significantly. For instance, Walker, questioning Hamlet’s madness, mentions that “Hamlet in us often doubts imagination to be the devil; but in rare moments when we put it to the test and false appearances dissolve in its fiery revelation, we too would take the ghost’s word for a thousand pound” (Walker, 1948).
Moreover, Shakespeare’s Hamlet does not put Claudius to watchfulness, but intentionally arouses his suspicions and anxiety. Two reasons determine this behavior of a Shakespearean hero. After a conversation with the Ghost, Hamlet assures friends that this is an honest spirit. However, in the monologue about Hecuba, urging oneself to act, the prince proceeds from the fact that the “honest spirit” told him the truth, presenting the fact that Claudius is a murderer. Nevertheless, at the end of the monologue, there suddenly appears a doubt:
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be a devil; and the devil hath power
T' assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me. I'll have grounds
More relative than this. The play’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King (act III, scene 2, 595-600).
In such a way, on the one hand, Hamlet is not sure of the truth of the words of the Ghost. In this, the prince discovers that he is no stranger to prejudices about spirits, which are still very tenacious in the era of Shakespeare. However, on the other hand, Hamlet, a man of the new time, wants to confirm the message from the other world with absolutely real earthly evidence. We will repeatedly encounter a similar combination of old and new, and, as will be shown later, it had a deep meaning. The words of Hamlet deserve attention in another aspect. They contain direct recognition of the depressed state of the hero. The above-mentioned words reflect the sad thoughts of Hamlet, expressed at the end of the second scene of the first act, when he thought about death.
To conclude, in the world literature there is a strong opinion that some kind of mystery is contained in Hamlet’s tragedy and his madness. The cause of this mystery is debatable, but the fact that the riddle does exist is real and it does not cause doubts in researchers. Meanwhile, if we proceed from the assumption that the main idea of this tragedy is the idea of the unnaturalness for a person of killing another person, it is impossible not to notice that all the actions of the hero are exceptionally psychologically motivated. Moreover, they are motivated by the text in such a bright way that they do not require any additional interpretations. It has long been known that a person with a healthy psyche is not capable of murder. Only when the psyche is disturbed because of stress, affect, or other circumstances then the fact of killing is possible. It seems that this thought is expressed in the play. Thus, the higher a person is in spirit, the more terrible is his disintegration, and the more solemn is his victory over his own finitude, and the deeper and holier is his bliss. Here is the true meaning of Hamlet’s madness.