Hamlet :: essays research papers

After Hamlet has discovered the truth about his father, he goes through a very traumatic period, which is interpreted as madness by readers and characters. With the death of his father and the hasty, incestuous remarriage of his mother to his uncle, Hamlet is thrown into a suicidal frame of mind in which "the uses of this world"seem to him "weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable." No man in his right state contemplates suicide and would take his life due to human frailty. Ophelia tells us that before the events of the play Hamlet was a model courtier, soldier and scholar, "The glass of fashion and the mould of form,/ The observed of all observers." A modern boy scout to say the least, but as the play unwinds, his actions and thoughts catch him and slowly turn him insane. Not to say that he was a crazed madman out of touch with reality as was Ophelia, but a man driven crazy by thought. Hamlet's behavior throughout the play, especially towards Ophelia is inconsistent. He jumps into Ophelia's grave, and fights with Laertes in her grave. He professes "I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers/Could not, with all their quantity of love,/ Make up my sum" [Act V, scene I, lines 250-253], during the fight with Laertes in Ophelia's grave, but he tells her that he never loved her, when she returns his letters and gifts, while she was still alive. Hamlet subtly hints his awareness of his dissolving sanity as he tells Laertes that he killed Polonius in a fit of madness [Act V, scene II, lines 236- 250] Once Ophelia meets Hamlet and speaks with him her love abandons him. Hamlet realizes that his mother and step father are aware of this love and might use this to end his threat. Hamlet must end their thoughts of using Ophelia to rid him of his condition. To do this he must destroy all the current feelings Ophelia has for him and he does so very well, perhaps too well. Either his love for Ophelia was never as strong as he said, which I doubt, or he has really gone insane by assuming every situation is going to happen and he sacrifices her love for revenge. An honest man would not have done so. Hamlet has violent outbursts towards his mother. His outburst seems to be out of jealousy, as a victim to the Oedipus complex.