Through it all, it seems that Hamlet really is mad, but no more so than you or I, desiring revenge on someone that has wronged us. But it is his method of going about this revenge and feigning madness that make people think that he is mad in a different way. The type of madness they envision is completely false. However, there is a type of madness in Hamlet. He is driven to it by the death of his father, his mother's incestuous activities, the death of the woman he loves and his rejection of the rules of society. This madness is quite common and differs significantly with an "antic disposition."
The question of Hamlet's guilt in the killing of Polonius seems, unsuprisingly, of little importance in the grand scheme of things. It is left to our imaginations and interpretations of history as to what behaviours would be socially or morally acceptable in these matters during the time of Shakespere. Perhaps Shakespere, in his writings, created his own ideologies and sense of propriety. One could say that Polonius was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. In late twentieth century American culture the term "involuntary manslaughter" could probably be applied to the brutal act if significant evidince were not available to support a murder conviction. Such factors would be dependant on the effective involvement of law enforcement. In the case of Polonius' death, the only law enforcement appears to be that of the King's corrupt ageanda which is uses to coerce Laertes into helping him murder Hamlet while they appear to compete fairly in the public view. This competition is not in the interest of justice, however, but rather for the King's entertainment, so Hamlet (and the public) is led to believe. Having failed in his efforts to have Hamlet executed in England, the King is now playing on Laertes to seek revenge. Hamlet seems to acknowledge the vengeful feelings of Laertes but does not appear to feel responsible for murder. Polonius simply became a casualty in the more important plot to avenge the former King. The only justice available for Polonius seems to be left to Laertes who has also lost his sister. She too is a victim of Claudius' corruption but Laertes has only Hamlet to blame for both deaths. To quote Claudius in his private conversation with Laertes, "Revenge should have no bounds". Is Hamlet guilty of murdering Polonius? Not in this neighborhood. Had Laertes succeeded in murdering Hamlet (without himself being killed), the same question could be applied. Perhaps Laertes would then be King.
Laertes is a character similar to Fortinbras. He is prepared to take actions, but he is also "poisoned" by the corruption of the Court. We have to remember that Laertes is revenging his father's and his sister's death. Although he is manipulated by Claudius, he still is performing revenge. This is the same situation with Hamlet; only Laertes has not been approached by a ghost. No, I don't agree with any opinions about him being corrupted and seeking power. He is an ambitious young man and when he has returned back to Denmark he finds his father killed and his sister driven to suicide by Hamlet. Before his departure he speaks to Ophelia: "Think it no more...." He understands the complexity of the relationship between Ophelia and Hamlet. He warns her that their relationship can never result in marriage and this results in Laertes's dislike of Hamlet. The only difference between Laertes and Hamlet is that Laertes does not attempt to find out the truth like Hamlet does. He falls for the deception by Claudius and his emotional shock leads to his duel with Hamlet.
Hamlet has to have a eyewitness because no one would believe a grieving son if he points a finger at his uncle as his father's murderer. People would just believe that he was upset and trying to place blame on someone. They wouldn't believe him. I believe that Hamlet wants his vengence but that he wants it to be a public unvieling. Claudius stole his father and in a sense stole his mother from Hamlet when he killed the king. Maybe he also feels that the King's death was a crime against Denmark,as well as against him. Killing his uncle in the church wouldn't suit his needs either because he feels that his uncle would go to heaven if killed while praying. He wants Claudius to be damned for killing his father. Maybe he also waits to kill Claudius because he doesn't feel ready to die yet. Hamlet admits to himself that he is hesitant to kill Claudius. By waiting to kill Claudius, Hamlet seems less like a murderer. The audience feels that Hamlet is justified for seeking revenge especially when he and his mother die later in the play. I think that Hamlet waits to kill his uncle because even though Hamlet is suicidal, I don't believe he is ready to die yet. For one thing he has to resolve some issues first. He has to kill his uncle but he needs to show to the public that Claudius was responsible for his father's death. Also, Hamlet doesn't want to go against the natural laws that forbid suicide. Then in his soliloquy of "To be or not to be...", you can see that although he still doesn't understand death completely, he accepts it as inevitable. He also sees death as traveling to another place or country.
Hamlet, despite being the protagonist and the hero for the play, is not completely innocent or without fault. He has performed numerous unforgivable acts and really if they had been the acts of Claudius or even Polonius the readers or audience of the play would condemn them for being so cold and heartless. Hamlet has done everything from deceive possibly every known character in the play except perhaps Horatio. He has deceived his mother, Claudius, Ophelia, Laertes among others. He has openly and visibly killed Polonius and very well had a hand in Ophelia’s death. He is also the reason, although not directly, that his mother fell to her death. He intentionally murdered his uncle Claudius and even though he was not aware that the sword tip was poisoned he was directly to blame for Laertes death. Shakespeare has created a character with fault and therefore he has created a very real person. Not to say that men do not die at the hands of kings but how could Hamlet take the thrown after all the injustice he performed? How when some of his acts so closely resembled those, although with different intentions, of his uncle the king could he in good consciousness take the thrown? And how would the kingdom suffer at the hands of a man who has lost everything and has no real direction in life other then to kill the man who killed his father?
Beyond all of the acts of killing, Hamlet began the play as a sane human being and throughout the play pretended to be insane, however, it is my belief that by the end of the play Hamlet was not truly in his right mind. I can only imagine how much farther he would’ve slipped had he been made to live with the images of all of his friends, save Horatio, and family dying around him.
Hamlet was never out for the good of the country either, in fact he was consumed with one effort alone. He would avenge his father’s death, it became the only important task and meaning in his life. He turned all others away from him and made it his only goal. What good would he have done for the country? How could he have gone about ruling when the only task he had ever set out to accomplish was done? Hamlet’s purpose was clear and when his ambition and drive led him to the ending he desired, the death of Claudius, his purpose was fulfilled.
Shakespeare was obviously out to write one of his many famous tragedies and a tragedy meant the death of the main characters. That nothing or no one would live to see a happy ending. Hamlet had to die for the greater good of the play.
Moreover Hamlet’s death in some ways seemed to absolve him of all his wrongs. By Hamlet dying in the end readers seem to forget all of his sins and allow him to finish out the hero of the story. Hamlet dies as a martyr for the greater good of the world and is raised up in death by the word of Fortinbras. His death leads the reader to feel as if every action was justified and came to a proper end.
Hamlet is now aware that there is something amiss after confronting his father’s ghost. “Something is rotten in the state of Demark.” He has now knows of the fact that his father did not just die of natural causes and is determined to find out what exactly happened. The only problem with this is that Hamlet’s determination drives him to put aside anyone else’s needs or feelings and thereby using them and hurting them to get what he wants. He sees everyone, in the beginning at least, as a tool to help aid his plot. Ophelia is no exception. From the very beginning he sees her as little more than a useful way to bring about the truth behind his father’s death.
Hamlet is aware of the friendship, or at least the appearance of friendship, between Polonius and his uncle. He knows that Polonius holds a kind of loyalty to both his Uncle the king and his mother the queen. He is also aware of Ophelia’s affection for him and even though I believe he returned her feelings, his drive to avenge his father’s death leads him to use her and ultimately lead to her own insanity. He knows that by convincing Ophelia that he is mad the chain of gossip will start and he will have no problem convincing his uncle and mother. He knows that Ophelia will ultimately share her feelings with her father, since it appears he is the only one she has to talk to in Denmark now that her brother is gone and Hamlet has seemingly gone insane. Hamlet knows that she will confide all of Hamlet’s doings to Polonius who will not hesitate in running to tell his uncle. But I believe that Hamlet does not consider what his actions will ultimately lead to.
Hamlet, in my opinion, does try to warn Ophelia but using phrases that can be looked at in two different ways. That of the ravings of a madman and also as a kind of warning that he is only pretending for the greater good. But unfortunately he is only taken as a madman and it is this, along with the loss of her father, that bring Ophelia herself to insanity’s door. His insanity is false and calculated, and I believe much to his dismay, he brings about a real insanity in Ophelia. She is not fake when she carries on as if her mind is gone, she has truly been driven mad. And it all started with Hamlet’s plan.
But I truly believe that Hamlet did not intend for Ophelia’s fate to play out as it did. I believe Hamlet did not know that he would result in Polonius’ death nor bring Ophelia to her own death. I believe that Hamlet loved her and felt that even though he had to use her for his greater goal, when that goal was accomplished he would reveal his actions and his motives to Ophelia and she would forgive him. I believe he thought after his father’s death was avenged he would end up in love and happy with Ophelia knowing that his uncle had been revealed as the murderer that he is. I think it broke Hamlet’s heart when Ophelia died and even before that. I think perhaps it hurt him from the very beginning but he carried on because he saw her as an integral part of his plan.
There is no way that Hamlet could have felt that the "Ghost of his Father" must have been the ACTUAL ghost, and not some evil devil of sorts. The fact exists that Shakespeare's father died close to less than a year before Hamlet was written. Thus, the concept of the Father's Ghost was not only a presence within the text of Hamlet, but the underlying emotions felt by Shakespeare, the playwright. Also, Shakespeare's father was an underground practicer/preacher of Catholicism. In the theology of Catholicism, there is a notion that between the stages of death and life after the death exists a purgatory of the soul. The soul enters a cleansing stage, and thus, lies unrest for a long period of time. This concept of purgatory remains present in Hamlet through the fact that Hamlet's father's soul remained in a state of unrest during purgatory, and thus, entered the real world as a ghost--to avenge his death and reveal the truth to his son, Hamlet. Therefore, Shakespeare had to have in mind that Hamlet knew about purgatory and soul-cleansing, and thus the ghost of Hamlet's father could be interpreted no other way than as a ghost--avenging his death.
Everyone believed that Hamlet had gone mad, which may lead one to believe that the spirit that he witnessed may have been a sign of the devil. However, in reality, the soul of Hamlet's dead father was not at peace. He had a mission to exploit what had happened to him and the only one that was clear-headed enough to challenge Claudius for what he had done was the king's son, Hamlet. Hamlet was not an assasin, even though he may have planned to be out of the anger that the murder of his father by Claudius may have caused him. In the end, Claudius' death was justice. If Hamlet was truly an assasin, he would not have allowed the death of his mother. Even though he at first suspected that his mother had participated in the death of his father, he loved her. Before Claudius drew his last breath, he saw his Gertrude die because of what he had attempted to do to Hamlet. He witnessed the pain in Gertrude's eyes at the sight of the sorrow for poor Hamlet and the realization of the man she had married. The man who had killed her love, the king - the beloved Hamlet's father. Even in death, Hamlet saw justice on the poisoning of his father's killer.
Hamlet shows a wide variety of emotions during his first soliloquy. During King Hamlet's funeral, more people celebrated the marriage between King Claudius and Gertrude then mouring for the late king's death. Hamlet saw that as a disrespectful act againest his father. Hamlet's depression about his father's death only grew more since it seemed that he was the only one doing the mouring. On top of that, his mother married his uncle. Gertrude could've atleast have waited awhile after King Hamlet's death before remarrying again, but such a hasty marriage with his uncle could only cause trouble. This caused some anger to build up within Hamlet since it was hurtful for him to watch his mother marry soon after his father's death; especially since she married his uncle. The event that revealed Hamlet's true rage was the talk he had with the ghost, his father. The ghost explained to Hamlet everything that had happened to him. The single most important thing that the ghost told him was that he was killed by Claudius. Hamlet's emotions was like a fierce maelstrom from this point on. This rage and hatred will be the only forces needed to guide Hamlet throughout the acts until he ultimatly confronts Claudius.
The term, "protagonist," better suits Hamlet, who is directly or indirectly responsible for 8 violent deaths, when he was charged by his father only to bring about one. Since the play is named for him, he's the center of attention. As the term implies, he's the one who struggles ("agon") for something ("pro").
The speech that Hamlet makes about Yorick is very complex and difficult to understand. However his reference to Yorick points out few interesting things. From his speech we can determine that Yorick was a very vivacious character and when he died "and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is!" . I believe that Hamlet is trying to express his fear of death. Hamlet is presented as a religious character and his faith is the only thing that prevents him from commiting suicide (note his first soliloquy). However his reference to Yorick shows signs of fear of death. Maybe this is one of the reasons why Hamlet is hesitating to kill Claudius. If he is a religious character why is he scared of death? We have to remember that the church played a very significant role in people's lives during the time when the play took place. We can also see that Hamlet hesitates to kill Claudius when the latter is praying (he is not actually praying but Hamlet does not know this), because he believes that if he kills him at that stage Claudius would be sent to heaven. This shows that Hamlet believes in Heaven and Hell. The speech about Yorick is an obvious contradiction to his beliefs and that is the fear of death. Hamlet, being an intellectual and a philosopher, begins to doubt his religious feelings. He is not a man of action like Fortinbras, his counter-balance.
Throughout William Shakespeare’s famous play, “Hamlet,” a young prince Hamlet is outraged and depressed after the swift marriage of his mother to his late father’s brother, Claudius. Not only is Hamlet experiencing extreme melancholy after the sudden death of his father, the king, but he is also completely shocked as he sees his scandalous uncle claim the throne, and his mother’s love. As the play goes on, tragedy after tragedy continues to happen that all could have been avoided had certain characters made better decisions. Different parental figures throughout the play have a tremendous affect on their children and the outcome of the play. Gertrude’s marriage to Claudius causes a young prince Hamlet much grief which is shown through his angry, depressed attitude towards everyone throughout the play. After receiving word on the tragic death of his father, Hamlet finds himself sadden eve more when he rushes home to find his mother married…to his uncle! Hamlet expresses this sadness and anger in ACT I, Scene 2 when he says, “She married, O! Most wicked speed to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets it is not no it cannot come to good; but break my heart for I must hold my tongue.” Hamlet’s whole world seems to be crashing down and he doesn’t know what to do. With both of his parents and their actions lingering over him, he has no time to love and enjoy anything else. Closer to the end of the play Hamlet finally works up the courage to speak to his mother. In ACT III, Scene 4 Hamlet’s heartache and rage is felt when he says to his mother, “You are the queen, your husband’s brother’s wife and would it weren’t so, you are my mother!” Gertrude’s actions are a major factor in the gruesome outcome of the play! Polonius’ refusal to let Ophelia see Hamlet partially contributes to Ophelia’s madness and her later suicide. Ophelia senses the sadness and heartache in Hamlet, but is unable to reach out to him due to the tight grip her father has on her. She sadly tells her father what he wants to hear after receiving a heartfelt letter from Hamlet in ACT II, Scene 1. “No my good lord, but as you did command, I did repel his letter and denied his access to me!” Polonius even goes to the extent of discussing these matters to the king in ACT III, Scene 1. “To England send him or confine him where your wisdom best shall think.” Without taking the time to actually consider his daughter’s feelings, Polonius takes away from Ophelia her only sense of true love. Little does Polonius know that his insecure actions will lead to the soon complete depression of his daughter Ophelia. As a result of Polonius’ sneaky ways, he is accidentally killed by Hamlet after hiding behind Gertrude’s curtains listening to a conversation between her and Hamlet. His death partially leads to not only to a heartbroken Ophelia who’s suicide verifies that she just couldn’t take anymore, but also a revenge seeking Laerates who’s hatred leads up to the final battle between Hamlet and himself at the end of the play. After Ophelia’s whole life seems to be falling apart, the death of her father is the final event proving, in Ophelia’s eyes, that she no longer has a reason to live. Claudius realizes this same fact in ACT IV, Scene 5 when he turns to Gertrude and says, “All from her father’s death. O’ Gertrude. O’ Gertrude. When sorrows come they come not only in single spied but in battalions. First her father slain; next your son gone…” They soon begin to understand the Ophelia has lost the only two men that she ever loved. As Laerates discovers what Hamlet has done, he is completely furious. He will hear nothing about his father’s death being an accident, for all he knows is what he can see. A crazy, depressed sister, and a dead father. His desire for revenge against Hamlet is shown in ACT IV, Scene 5 when he says to Claudius, “Let come what comes; only I’ll be reveng’d most thoroughly for my father. The tragic, end result of both of these young people’s lives is all a result of their late father, Polonius. It all begins with a heartbroken Hamlet. His complete melancholy after the death of his father, and Gertrude’s marriage to Claudius rubs off on to Ophelia who wants nothing more than to help him and figure out what has happened. This comfort is impossible though due to an insecure, overprotective Polonius who turns to lying and deceitfulness to keep his daughter from being with her true love. Polonius’ dishonest ways end up leading to the end of his life, causing his loyal son to turn mad along with his sister, making his number one goal to seek revenge for his dead father. Neither Polonius nor Gertrude realizes that everything that they are doing is affecting their children in the worst of ways. If it hadn’t been for Gertrude’s marriage to Claudius, would Hamlet have gone crazy? And, if it weren’t for Polonius’ dishonest ways, would Ophelia still be alive? And if Polonius’ wasn’t sneaking around in Gertrude’s room, causing a hysterical Hamlet to strike out unknowingly, would the final battle between Hamlet and Laerates ever had occurred? All of these questions will remain unanswered because the parents in this play never took the time to consider that their irresponsible actions would be the end to any love and life that had once been found in their children.
Polonius, though he may appear calculating and "a rash, intruding fool" is merely a well intentioned character who by his loquacious nature manages to get himself into trouble. Polonius is a curious character; in fact, it is his willingness to spy which eventually proves to be his downfall. Yet even in this he is well intentioned. He is not an evil man, merely one tainted by the corruption around him.
Sexual References: In Act 2, Scene 2, Hamlet says that Polonius is a fishmonger. The term fishmonger, other than a seller of fish, also refers to a pimp. Hamlet is saying that Polonius is pimping Ophelia to Hamlet (Polonius is using Ophelia throughout the play to get information). In the same scene, Hamlet says "...if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog...have you a daughter? Let her not walk in the sun. Conception is a blessing, but as your daughter may conceive..." In Elizabethan times, it was thought that if something dead was left in the sun, the sun would spontaneously create maggots. Hamlet is saying not to let Ophelia in (with) the sun (Hamlet), because he will impregnate her with children (maggots). Also, Hamlet makes many sexual references to his mother Act 3, Scene 4 which some say proves that Hamlet has the Oedipus complex, because he is so worried about his mother having sex with Claudius. "...Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love..." "Good night-but go not to my uncle's bed." Hamlet's sexual obsession with his mother is a commonly explored theme.