Presented to:- Department of English Prepared by:- Dipjyoti Bharali

Roll No:- 18MEN005

Topic:- Dubiosity regarding Hamlet’s madness in “HAMLET”

Course Title:- MA in English
Corse Code:- ENG-PG-C103
Title of the Paper:- Drama I
Date of Presentation:- 26th Oct, 2018
by---William Shakespeare

1564-1616
 Introduction

“Madness” holds to be a common

theme in Shakespeare’s plays. His great tragedy
“HAMLET” is no exception to it. Here madness seems
in the character of Prince Hamlet. But his madness
ranks the play to be a problematic one. The reason is
that readers often fall into a dilemma whether
Hamlet’s madness is feigned or real.
 Hamlet’s madness is feigned or real ?
Critics’ Observation

“Hamlet is not mad, he is fully

responsible for his actions. But he
suffers from melancholia, a pathological
state, which may develop into lunacy.
His melancholy accounts for his nervous
excitability, his longing for death, his A.C. Bradley
irresolution and delay.”

“The fact is that Shakespeare never intended

to represent Hamlet as mad or half-mad, or
Stopford Brooke verging on madness. Shakespeare expressly
made Hamlet a feigner of madness……..”
 Contd….

Hamlet says Horatio

“Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,
How strange or odd so’e’er I bear myself,
As I perchance hereafter shall think meet,
To put an antic disposition….”

Causes of Hamlet’s madness:-(i) Gertrude’s hasty marriage

(ii)The ghost’s revelation of the truth that Hamlet’s
father was murdered by his uncle Claudius.
 Grounds for the belief that Hamlet’s madness is real

 Ophelia’s description to her father about Hamlet’s strange behaviour

 Hamlet’s talking to Polonius and his remark on Polonius’s daughter----”Let her not
walk in the sun; conception is blessing; but not as your daughter may conceive-
Friend, look to it.”
 Hamlet’s meeting with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Rosencrantz says that the world
has grown honest. Then Hamlet replies----”Then is doomsday near; but your news is
not true. Let me question more in particular what have you , my good friends,
deserved at the hands of Fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?”
 Hamlet’s speaking to Ophelia and insulting of her in the nunnery scene.(Act III, Scene I)
 Hamlet’s murder of Polonius.