In the play Hamlet acts mad. He is not crazy however but is merely pretending to be. Before he begins this act he tells Horatio and Marcellus what he is about to do. Polonius notices that there is too much sense in Hamlets charade for him to be truly crazy. Hamlet makes sure his uncle is guilty of murder before enacting his revenge.
Hamlet's apparent psychological state as the play progresses changes from that of a scholar, to that of a madman, though contradictorily this change is in itself a deceptive act. Polonius, a lord and right hand to the King, is involved in a large amount of lying and deception. Polonius manipulates his children to benefit his social status and relationship with the King and has no moral objections at any time. Commonly a co-conspirator to Polonius' spying plots is the King, Claudius. Claudius, Hamlet's uncle is the most serious offender of lying and deceit.
“Why, then, ’tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison.” (Act 2, scene 2). As the result of his over thoughts he is delaying his revenge. . At one point at act 1 scene 5, Hamlet starts to analyze the Ghost speech to seek revenge (Act 1, scene 5, page 30). When the Ghost and Hamlet finish their dialog Hamlet agrees to seek revenge against Claudius, but still doesn’t act.
If Hamlet were to have seen his father’s ghost by himself, there would be a greater argument for him being insane from the outset of the play. Hamlet also exerts control over his actions, which is the main reason why it could be argued that he is sane. He actively tries to convince Polonius that he has gone mad - mocking him when he would usually be respectful, acting cruelly towards Ophelia whom he was clearly affectionate to earlier in the play. He does this in the hope that Polonius will tell the court of his madness. Hamlet is often hesitant to do things, for example where he had the chance to kill Claudius in the chapel but couldn’t bring himself to do it, not because he would be killing another human but because he wanted Claudius to suffer and not go straight to Heaven.
After King Hamlet's death, Laertes, along with Prince Hamlet return to Denmark for the funeral services. This is the first sign that Laertes will become a foil to Hamlet in the play. Hamlet is devastated but he only mopes around whereas when Laertes father Polonius is murdered he vows for revenge “to the blackest Devil!”(4.5.215) He thinks through his emotions, not with his brain like Hamlet. When Hamlet is trying to solve if Claudius killed his father he uses Gertrude asking, “I know not: is it the King?”(3.4.123) Spying through someone else is typical Hamlet not only keeping his feeling hush but also avoiding a confrontation with the king before he knows for sure if he killed his father. When Ophelia dies Laertes is Distraught and isn’t afraid to show this whereas Hamlet loved her but his lack emotion left him without a connection to her at the end of the play.
Laertes is Claudius’s right hand man and if he got hold of the information that Hamlet is faking insanity, he would unquestionably report it to the king and that will foil Hamlet’s quest for revenge in the future. Ophelia always complies with her father as she follows his advice in matters of Hamlet as she denies Hamlet’s visits and refuses his letters. Thus, Hamlet should make Ophelia believe that he has lost his sanity for his plan to work out and that wouldn’t be possible if he marries Ophelia. To add on, Ophelia’s devoted obedience to her father makes Hamlet allege that Ophelia is deceptive and unfaithful. Hamlet is angry with Ophelia and in rage, he tells her that her beauty is dishonest and that he did love Ophelia once and at the same time, he never did.
While speaking the ghost Hamlet asks, “O all you host of heaven! O Earth! What else?/And shall I couple hell?” (I.v.25). Hamlet does not believe the ghost until Act III, when Hamlet tricks Claudius into revealing that he is the cause of his fathers death through the use of his play, “The Murder of Gonzago.” Even though Hamlet knows the truth, he still has trouble acting on his thoughts. It seems that Hamlet does not want to extract revenge and he regrets promising the ghost that he will do so, “O cursed spite,/That ever I was born to set it right!
Deadly sins The seven deadly sins are renowned for a reason, which is that just one of them can drive a person insane. Greed and envy together can lead a person into doing immoral and unjustified deeds. In the play "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare, Claudius is the villain who contradicts Knight's The Embassy of Death because Claudius's actions and behavior result from his innate greed for wealth and envy of true love that his brother King Hamlet had; on the other hand, Knight views that his actions were forced upon him due to Hamlet's unstable mentality. (wrap up the thesis statement, condense to the main point. You don't need to make a comparison, but pick which view you agree with, Knight or Shakespeare's, or make it into 2 separate sentences.
But later on, we discover Hamlet is not mad, and that it was all just an act. He puts back on his shoes, and the killing begins. Hamlet is only crazy in the purpose of fooling his step-uncle, to confess to killing the king. Hamlet craves the vengeance, and is successful in a way Claudius ends up paying for his deed. But at the end, everyone loses and dies except Horatio.
By saying these words to her he is crassly calling her a harlot, and making to appear that he never really loved her. Ophelia made one decision and that was to love Hamlet, and now he is using her actions to make her feel inferior and sinful. Up to this point in the play, Shakespeare depicted Hamlet as a mad man hell-bent on avenging his fathers suspect death, however: his cruel outburst at Ophelia is not a turning point in the story in which he goes from being a hero to being a cold-hearted oppressor. Hamlet tells Ophelia that she will have to ‘marry a fool’ because ‘wise men’ would know better than to marry her; he yells at her ‘get thee to a nunnery’, and yet the way it fits into the plot makes it seem almost expected. As the plot progresses Ophelia begins to lose her mind, resulting in her eventually suicide, but at no point his Hamlet called out for his harsh words against her in a significant way.