Hamlet: Hamlet's Greatest Crime Was His Inherent Goodness
Pain is a disease who ravaging effects are augmented by thought. It is the great irony of life that consciousness, the driving force of mankind that has delivered us from the age of stone to that of industry, delivers us also to the inescapable prison of the mind. Events that in the cycle of life are little more than trivial, can be given by the mind's eye power enough to consume us whole. The grief of the moment can become, with thought, a crashing wave that leaves behind only a semblance of sanity in its wake, for in thinking there is both life and death. Trapped inside the prison of his mind, chained by a grief consciousness served only to torture him with, Hamlet, the prince of ...
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Shakespeare leads you to believe that the main character, Hamlet, might be insane. There are many clues to suggest Hamlet is insane but in fact he is completely sane.
Throughout the play Hamlet makes wise decisions to prove his so-called �madness� to others when obviously it is merely an act. He knows exactly what he is leading up to. He just delays to act due to his indecisiveness or inaction. An example of this is when Hamlet says �Now might I do it pat, now �a is a-praying;/ And now I�ll do�t. And so �a/ goes to heaven,/ And so am I revenged that would be scanned:/ A villain kills my father, and for that,/ I, his sole son, do this same villain send/ To heaven./ Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge.� (III.iii.73). This very scene illustrates Hamlet�s tragic flaw: indecision. He has the perfect opportunity to kill the newly King yet holds himself back from doing what he set out to do. His reason was that by killing him while he�s praying, his soul goes to heaven and this ...
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for his inexplicable and rash behaviors. Hamlet pretends not to know who Polonius is, even though he is Ophelia�s father. After Polonious talks with Hamlet he explains to the King the cause of Hamlet�s crude actions: �Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,/ Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness,/ Thence to a lightness, and by this declension/ Into a madness wherein now he raves/ And we all mourn� (II.ii.147-150). When Hamlet is around Horatio, Bernardo, Fransisco, the players and the Gravediggers, he behaves rationally. In Act II, section II, lines, 378-379, Hamlet says: �I am but mad north-north-west. When the/ wind is southernly I know a hawk from a handsaw.� He is letting ...
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"Hamlet: Hamlet's Greatest Crime Was His Inherent Goodness." Essayworld.com. March 9, 2007. Accessed November 28, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Hamlet-Hamlets-Greatest-Crime-His-Inherent/61476.
"Hamlet: Hamlet's Greatest Crime Was His Inherent Goodness." Essayworld.com. March 9, 2007. Accessed November 28, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Hamlet-Hamlets-Greatest-Crime-His-Inherent/61476.
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