The Truth of a Madman’s Antic Disposition

2095 Words9 Pages
The Truth of a Madman’s Antic Disposition In William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet: Prince of Denmark the protagonist, Hamlet Prince of Denmark, is set with a heavy and disturbing task to take vengeance upon his father’s “most foul, strange and unnatural murder” (1.5.31). The intolerable weight from such a responsibility led Hamlet into a deep psychological misfortune of the mind. Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most brilliant and admired tragedies. The plot is famous for its soliloquies, the use of deception, and desperate attempts at redemption. However the main factor driving and building the plot is the element of madness. The term madness is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as either a disorder of the mind or a behaviour whereby a person flouts societal norms and may become a danger to him and others. One day, Hamlet returns to his home, Denmark’s palace to find his father, King Hamlet, dead. Still mourning and recovering from the death of his father, his mother, Gertrude marries Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle. Soon after, the young prince is visited by a ghost that resembled the appearance of his dead past father. To increase confusion on Hamlet’s situation even more, the ghost gives details about the truth of King Hamlet’s death; the King was murdered by Claudius while asleep. Because of this and other similar factors, like betrayal, Hamlet began to fall down into a sense of insanity. Throughout William Shakespeare’s play The Tragedy of Hamlet: Prince of Denmark, indication of Prince Hamlet’s true madness is seen in his feelings of abandonment and betrayal from the relationships he has with his family and friends, the unstable emotions and thoughts of avenging his father’s “unnatural” murder, and the unbelievable appearance and meeting of the presumably ghost of former king of Denmark Hamlet’s father, King Hamlet. The character of Hamlet has

More about The Truth of a Madman’s Antic Disposition

Open Document