Hamlet: Madness vs. Method The story of Hamlet is one centered around the theme of revenge with the purpose of showing how people will change in order to achieve their goals. Of course within that theme there are many sub themes such as Hamlet acting crazy for a majority of the play. The big question is, was that craziness part of a grand scheme of revenge or had Hamlet lost his mind? Hamlet may have been overdramatic, but he was simply using a ruse of madness in order to kill his uncle and gain his revenge. Dealing with a formalism lens, most hints of Hamlet faking his craziness are through his speech.
In some cases it can be seen that Hamlet is only saying what he does because he knows others are listening in. The monologue before his confrontation with Ophelia for example, “To be, or not to be? That is the question—Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,or to take arms against a sea of troubles,and, by opposing, end them? To die, to sleep—No more—and by a sleep to say we end.”(III.i.57-62), Hamlet probably knew Polonius and his uncle could hear him and so he chose to keep up his ruse while pondering aloud about death. What implies this as a strong case for method is the fact that right after the scene with Ophelia happens Hamlet goes back to his normal self and talks in a completely reasonable fashion with the players and with Horatio, “Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue.
But if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand thus, but use all gently, for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and . .y. Of course people in real life use insanity as an excuse as well. People trying to get away with murder will use the insanity case to avoid possible life sentencing or execution.
Insanity can be one of the best resources people today use because it causes others to feel bad for the one acting insane and so they will try to help them rather than blame them for any rash actions they have committed. Although Shakespeare ‘s play was geared towards the theme using madness as a way to take revenge, the ultimate purpose of the story is to highlight how people change their nature to achieve a final goal. In other words, changing how one act and behaves in order to capture what they desire. When the want is great enough all humans will act a certain way to get what they want. In the case of Hamlet that means pretending to be a crazed sociopath in order to kill the king.
