Реферат: Is Hamlet Loony Essay Research Paper Throughout

The encounter with the ghost of his father changes Hamlet’s nature considerably.

He is shaken but becomes determined to act in some way and starts the scheming that

continues throughout the rest of the play by swearing his friends to secrecy about the

meeting. He also develops a new found sense of looniness (new word?), because of his

unique ability to understand his father’s communications, i.e. the guy talks to ghosts. This,

more than anything, makes him seem mad, and draws the many of the side-plots with

Ophelia, Polonius and Laertes into the play.

After the confusion caused by Hamlet’s meeting with the ghost, his appearance is

misinterpreted by Ophelia and Polonius as love: “That hath made him mad” concludes

Polonius. But Ophelia is not Hamlet’s target and once she and her father have begun to

think that she is, Hamlet’s behavior appears more and more bizarre to them. Polonius’

snooping, which alerts Claudius to Hamlet’s ‘madness’, eventually leads to his own death -

but by this point, Hamlet is more composed, and he has a clear end in sight.

However, Hamlet does not appear in his original, placid state. From Act III

onwards, Hamlet appears in control of his ‘crafty madness’ as Guildernstern calls it. He

dispatches Rosencrantz and Guildernstern to their deaths in England, instructs the Players

to give Claudius a performance that is rather too close to home, and finally he engages

Laertes in combat. By the final scene, Hamlet’s state of mind is again in confusion: in his

passionate desire to avenge his father’s death, he had not understood the full extent of

Claudius’ plotting against him, which leads to the deaths of both of them, as well as his

mother and Laertes.

Hamlet’s state of mind is initially confused as he feels that the order of his world

has been upset, and evil (in the form of Claudius and his marriage to Gertrude) has

triumphed over good (in the form of his father). He is also indecisive, but his encounter

with the ghost is his motivation for action in the rest of the play. Because he is not used to

deceiving and killing, he finds himself holding back from killing Claudius, remembering the

ghost’s instructions to ensure that he go to Hell. The audience sees a more in-depth look at

this hesitation than the other characters, through Hamlet’s soliloquies and asides, and

therefore see the development of Hamlet’s ‘madness’ more roundly. Hamlet’s world