Our first glimpse of Hamlet, the prince of Denmark is at the royal Danish hall with his mom, Gertrude and the newly placed king, Claudius. Hamlet is dressed in full black for the mourning of his father and is already contemplating the thought of suicide. He is torn apart by his father's death and slowly throughout the play becomes encompassed by the revenge he must fulfill for his father. This revenge brings Hamlet to a state of madness that worsens and brings Hamlet from the methodical, pensive prince he was to a brutal, action-first madman. Hamlet comes to the goal of revenging his father once Horatio and two Danish guards bring him to talk with his Ghost of a father. The Ghost is a key element in Hamlets madness and is the original catalyst for his insanity. This ghost converts Hamlet from "thought to action," and shows the conversion from sanity to madness. He urges Hamlet forward to action boldly and to avenge his father who now suffers in a "land he cannot describe." Hamlet acts against his judgment more and more throughout the play. First, he holds himself against the temptation with not killing the king. Then he kills Polonius with the aggravation that he isn't acting with action, thus killing the wrong man. And finally you witness the ultimate change in Hamlet when he fights Laertes regardless of the bad feeling he has about their match.
Hamlet converts from the intelligent prince to a hasty murder. This madness is pushed from the Ghost, who changes Hamlet irrational. The final point of Hamlet's madness is when he accepts his own death and declares that fate has already set it's course and he has no input on it's decisions. He has accepted his thoughts of suicide and and realized that to take revenge for King Hamlet he must go to extreme lengths to do so, regardless if these mad lengths entail his own death. Hamlet turns truely suicidal and thus mad.
Slator, be careful when you write your essay to not summarize it too much and instead develop your thought of Hamlet's madness. I definitely think you should add Hamlet's speech "to be or not to be" and how his contemplative mindset propels him to take revenge on his father's death. Overall, good topic!
ReplyDeleteI think that this topic is really good and you have a lot to work from out of the book. I think that you could also mention that by acting mad at the beginning Hamlet forced himself to go mad really quickly.
ReplyDeleteSlator,
ReplyDeleteGina is right in that you clearly have a lot to work with regarding this issue of Hamlet's madness (which does seem pretty central to the play). Keep in mind that Hamlet was contemplating suicide BEFORE encountering the ghost. Consider, too, his confession to Laertes just before the begin their fencing. Brendan is taking a similar approach to the play, so you might check out my comments on his post above.