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Replies | Post Reply | Shakespeare Queries From Genuinely Interested Students 4.2.97: Top | Help
Hamlet was not insane, rather his experiences had caused him to view life from
a heightened state of awareness. Think of all that he had gone through, his father
killed, seeing and speaking with his father's ghost and hearing of his torture in the
afterlife, his ideal of womanhood shattered when his mother married so shortly after her
husband's death, and Ophelia's rejection of him in obediance to her father. His world view
was forever altered from that of others who have never experienced such extreme aspects of life.
Watching someone you love die changes your perception of life, shattering completely your illusions
that life is a fairy tale and things will always work out. To find out that there is an afterlife
and to hear of the horrors his father is now facing there raises Hamlet's consciousness above that of
most people who have not had a similar experience and cannot see the world with that perspective in mind.
His killing of Polonius was not madness, but an impulsive act out of his rage once he was convinced of Claudius'
guilt from his actions while watching the play. Prior to this he still could not be sure that the ghost of his
father was not some apparition created out of grief and loss. Claudius was after all the King and heavily guarded. To kill him
would not have been an easy task in any event, but before even attempting Hamlet had to be sure, which is why he had the players
enact a play simulating the circumstances of his father's death. He did not kill him when he had the chance when Claudius was praying
because then he would have died while cleansing his soul and would (in Hamlet's mind) been free of his sins and go to 'heaven'
whereas Hamlet's father died unawares and uncleansed of his sins, thus condemned to the hellworld he was in.
Posted by BJ on April 10, 1997 at 13:33:23
In Reply to "Hamlet is sane..." posted by Tim Ricci on April 04, 1997 at 12:04:52
Replies | Post Reply | Shakespeare Queries From Genuinely Interested Students 4.2.97: Top | Help