Hamlet: Grief/Insanity

I will be focusing on the connection of grief and insanity throughout the play. This will allow me to discuss Hamlet and Ophelia's grief which ultimately lead to their madness. With these characters I can compare and contrast how they handled their grief and how their insanity effected them. I will be using passages from Ophelia's singing scene with Gertrude, Claudius and Laertes. This will help me to show both her deep grief and insanity. I may also include previous scenes with her father to show where the grief stemmed from. For Hamlet, I will use the scene of his mother and him, before and after he kills Polonious, as well as the scene with he and Ophelia when she hands back his letters. These scenes of Hamlet will help me to prove his insanity is from the loss of his father and his lost connection with Ophelia. This topic will also allow me to question whether or not Hamlet was actually mad or if it was all just an act and if madness was a real theme in this play. Then i will also compare grief and insanity, I can discuss how the pain of grief potentially leads to insanity. And how it overcomes the grief.