Hamlet’s Madness:

The problem of madness is perhaps the most maddening problem in Hamlet. Some critics are of the view that Hamlet is sane throughout but feigns insanity. Others hold the opinion that Hamlet’s madness is less than madness and more than feigned.

 Before the play begins Hamlet is clearly a sensitive and idealistic young man. He is a scholar, a philosopher, and a poet too, who conceives the finest thoughts and exhibits great intellectual quality. We get a vivid picture of Hamlet as he was in the words of Ophelia:
“The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword/Th’ expectancy and rose of the fair state/The glass of fashion, and the mould of form/Th’ observed of all observes”
This shows that Hamlet was once a master of his own self and had full command over his mind and sense. But as the play proceeds we can find the traces of madness in him. After his mother’s hasty marriage and the Ghost’s revelation, Hamlet’s “noble and most sovereign reason” is all “out of tune and harsh”.

Some critics are of the opinion that under the pressure of these two circumstances – his mother’s hasty marriage ,and the Ghost’s revelation – Hamlet lost his reason. We tend to agree with “Deighton” when he says:

“In every single instance in which Hamlet’s madness is manifested, he has good reason for assuming that madness: while, on the other hand , whenever there was no need to hoodwink anyone, his thought, language and action, bear no resemblance to unsoundness of intellect”

He talks rationally and shows great intellectual power in his conversations with Horatio. He receives the players with kind courtesy and his refinement of behaviour towards them shows that he is not mad.

In the first act we are told by Hamlet himself that he is going to feign madness to carry out his entrusted task of avenging his father’s murder.  “I perchance hereafter shall think meet/To put an antic disposition on.”

In his talk with Polonius, where he calls him a “ fishmonger” and insults him further with the satirical remark, “O Jephtha, Judge of Israel” , Polonius observes: “Though this be madness/Yet there is method in it.

When Polonius wants to pluck out some information from him, Hamlet distracts him by his witty remark, “Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in the shape of a camel?”

However, as he is a fool by nature he is easily deceived by Hamlet’s feigned madness and comments: “How pregnant sometimes his replies are!”

Then there is Claudius, the shrewd man, who suspects the authenticity of Hamlet’s madness. When Polonius reveals the ‘very ecstasy of love’ as the cause of his madness, Claudius after observing Hamlet closely comments: “Love? His affections do not that way tend/Nor what he spake, though it lacked form a little/Was not like madness.”
So Claudius strongly suspects, as we all do, that Hamlet’s madness is feigned and not real. Nevertheless he remarks: “Madness in great one’s must not unwatched go.”

Gertrude, the Queen mother of Hamlet though not believes in Polonius’ version of Hamlet’s madness, she too suspects that Hamlet is insane. After the ghost’s second appearance in the closet scene she is truly amazed at Hamlet’s actions. She exclaims with wonder: “How is it with you/That you bend your eye on vacancy/And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?”

Hamlet upon her amazement reveals truth to her: “I essentially am not in madness/But mad in craft.”

The next to suspect the real nature of his madness is his own school fellows Guildenstern and Rosencrantz. Guildenstern finds crafty madness in him and Hamlet himself reveals the truth to them:

“I am but mad north-north west/When the wind is southerly/I know a hawk from a handsaw”
He tells Guildenstern that he cannot make him a “wholesome answer”, as his “wits are diseased”, and it is of no use if he expected to “ pluck out the heart of his mystery/ And sound him from the lowest note to the top of his compass.” When Rosencrantz is unable to comprehend his witty remarks, Hamlet simply states:

“A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.”

Hamlet enacts the ‘Mousetrap’ play to confirm Claudius’ guilt. This does not sound like a mad man’s action. Only a man of wisdom could plan everything systematically and arrive at the expected conclusion. Harley Granville Barker points out:
“When he is alone, we have the truth of him , but it is his madness which is on public exhibition”

When Hamlet confronts Ophelia in Act-III, his rational thoughts slip away and he curses and bashes her: “If thou dost marry I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry/Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny/Get thee to a nunnery.”

He lashes out at her calling her two-faced: God has given you one face and you make yourselves another”. The poor Ophelia is no judge of Hamlet’s crafty madness and regretfully comments: “O, What a noble mind is here overthrown.” He curses herself who has “sucked the honey of his music vows.”

One can trace the glimpses of the true insanity in Hamlet’s actions. For example his actions of rushing headlong towards a beckoning ghost, rashly running his rapier through Polonius without seeing him, speaking to Yorick’s skull, and leaping into Ophelia’s grave to grapple with Laertes hardly fit the description of one within the control of his senses.

We can sum up above discussion in the words of Bradley:

"Hamlet is not mad, he is fully responsible for his actions. But he suffers from melancholia a pathological state which may develop into lunacy. His melancholy accounts for his nervous excitability, his longing for death, his irresolution and delay.”