Hamlet still acts sane at certain points in the play when talking to the ones he told that he was going to act insane. When insane he would not be able to act sane and always remember to act sane around certain people throughout the play. He states right at the beginning of the play he is doing it as an act to seek revenge on his father. The ghost of his father brings on hamlet’s insanity, but there were also other people there to witness it. If Hamlet were insane he would have seen the ghost alone, since they have seen him as well Hamlet can trust them and act sane around them. “Which I have told thee of my father’s death”, this happens during the play of which Claudius is confronted, Hamlet has told Haratio of his father’s terrible death showing that he can trust him, so he has no reason to act insane (3. 2. 77). He is not trying to hint at his father’s death to Haratio like he is to others in the play, so he has no reason to act insane. Hamlets uses of puns in the play were a way for emotional relief (Eliot). Hamlet calling Polonius a fishmonger may be seen as insanity to most, but not to Hamlet, being more of an intellectual than the rest, it humours Hamlet causing emotional relief.
Hamlet is totally aware of his surroundings and the events taking place around him. He is still intact with emotion, he does not react out of context, and he reacts to sad events with sadness and so on. He is not constantly hearing voices or hallucinating like a madman, it is Hamlet not his father telling him to kill Claudius. Throughout the entire play in any situation does Hamlet pause to think what emotion a sane person would use? “You were sent for”, Hamlet says this just after he finds out his mother and father have sent Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to find the truth of his act of madness (2. 2. 278). Hamlet reacted normally in this situation, his parents sent people to spy on him, and his reaction is anger, a perfectly normal reaction in this situation. Hamlet’s knowledge of death drives him to murder and madness (Knight). Hamlet is not the only one who sees the ghost, Haratio must also have knowledge of death, he is not insane and neither is Hamlet. It may drive him to murder, but not madness, he only kills the same amount of people Claudius does, and Claudius is not insane. Laertes kills himself by adding the poison to the tip of the sword, it would have been a mere flesh wound, Hamlet reacted accordingly by wanting revenge as anyone else would when Laertes took the cheap blow to Hamlet, even by the end Hamlet was acting within accordance to someone with sane characteristics not some of a madman.
Hamlet acted not alike Ophelia in the play. Nobody would argue on the topic of Ophelia being sane or insane, it was blatantly obvious, but not so with Hamlet. Shakespeare put this in to let us know the difference, how someone would act insane and have us compare it to Hamlet. Ophelia was an entirely different person when insane, than she was as her sane self in most of the play, Hamlet was not different in mind, but in speech and actions. Ophelia seemed lost without her father, she had no reason to live, whereas Hamlet had to live and avenge his father’s death. When the violets “withered when her father died” she uses a chicken bone to represent the violet and the loss of any faithfulness she had (4. 5. 182). That is truly insane, Hamlet did nothing of the sort, and Ophelia was in a state of insanity where he was in a state of depression. Melancholy is something very different from insanity (Bradley). Melancholy may turn to insanity as it did with Ophelia, but it did turn out that way with Hamlet because he could still think and communicate, she could not.
Hamlet is able to achieve almost exactly what he wants by the end of the play. Hamlet does not kill innocent people in any mad rampages, or manage to even make Horatio suspect him to be crazy by the end of the play. He only wants the death of Claudius in the play and he achieves it, along with many other casualties, but none of them being his fault, with the exception of Polonius who is spying on him, he must be getting sick of this at that point in the play. If he were insane he would have killed all of these people off five minutes into the play without any repercussion, but he thought everything through even the correct time for the killing of his uncle or if his mother played a part in his father’s murder. “Drink off this poison”, Hamlet forces the king to drink the poison to no have revenge also for his mother’s death (5. 2. 331). He is still sane because his mind is so clear, he is able to still feel sadness for his mother and get revenge for both his father and mother, if he were insane he would have just hauled off and killed him without these extras. We are incapable of achieving things because we do not understand ourselves (Lewis). Hamlet understood himself so he achieved his goal and was not insane by killing the king, he did it all for justice and even for the people for Claudius killing off a better king, King Hamlet, he did it for the people that could not understand themselves and in turn not able to take down a corrupt monarchy.
Through thinking and acting normally, being sane towards certain characters, knowing how to react in unusual situations, being different from Ophelia, and achieving what he wanted in the end Hamlet is truly a sane person. It was all to avenge the death of Hamlet’s father, he may have staved off the final outcome, but only because he thought things through when others out of being insane from these traumatic events would not be sane enough to be capable of doing the same.
