From Madness to Metaphysics
Disorder in Hamlet, Prince of DenmarkHamlet,
Prince of
Denmark
Hamlet
Madness
Arguments For
Arguments Against
Why?
One of the primary questions in the audience’s minds during and after the
play is “is Hamlet really mad?” If so, this is evidence of disorder as it calls into
question all of Hamlet’s relationships, actions and justifications for these
actions. If Hamlet is sane, it could be argued that he is also evil, as he is
responsible - directly or indirectly - for many deaths and much discomfort
throughout the play.
* Arguments FOR Hamlet’s insanity:
∙He appears to be mad when he hears of his father’s death.
Horatio describes him as speaking “wild and whirling words,”
(I.v.132).
∙Hamlet’s behaviour towards Ophelia throughout the play is
erratic. He tells her he never loved her when she returns his
letters and gifts, but professes to be the only one who truly
loved her during the fight with Laertes in her grave.
∙His mood changes abruptly throughout the play, from
philosophically contemplative, to seething with anger, to bright
and jesting.
Arguments FOR Hamlet’s insanity:
∙He jumps into Ophelia’s grave and fights with Laertes.
∙He sees the ghost in his mother’s chamber when she is unable
to perceive him (III.iv). At all previous points in the play Hamlet
had had independent verification of the Ghost’s presence. This
may be a sign that he is finally mad.
∙He tells Horatio that he killed Polonius when he “forgot himself,” and
talks of a “towering passion,” (V.ii).
Arguments AGAINST Hamlet’s insanity:
∙Hamlet tells Horatio that he will feign an “antic disposition,” (I.v.172).
∙Hamlet’s “madness,” only manifests itself in the presence of certain
characters. When Hamlet is around Polonius, Claudius, Gertrude,
Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern he behaves irrationally. When
around Horatio, Bernardo, Francisco, the players and the gravediggers
he behaves rationally.
Arguments AGAINST Hamlet’s insanity:
∙Claudius says of Hamlet “what he spake, though it lacked form a little,
Was not like madness,” (III.i.157-8).
∙Polonius says of Hamlet’s actions “there is method in’t,” (II.ii.200-201).
∙Hamlet’s actions in no way mirror Ophelia’s true madness, they
contrast with it.
∙Hamlet says to his mother “I essentially am not in madness, But mad in
craft,” (III.iv.188-9)
∙Hamlet believes in his sanity at all times. At no point does he doubt his
control over his mind.
If Hamlet is mad, most of his actions can be easily accounted for. However, if one
comes to the conclusion that Hamlet is sane, at least for part of the play, this allows
an element of disorder into proceedings, as it is difficult for the audience to ascertain
the exact nature of his motivation for his actions.
Motivation
The most obvious question regarding Hamlet’s actions, aside from whether
they are a product of madness, is whether their motivation stems from a
sense of justice or a need for revenge.
*
Motivation
At first, it seems that revenge is an obvious motive - it is a word the Ghost uses
on more than one occasion e.g. “Revenge his foul and most unnatural
murder,” (I.v.25), and Hamlet swears to remember this commandment at the
risk of sacrificing “all trivial fond records,” (I.v.99).
Motivation
However, throughout most of the play Hamlet seems anxious to justify his
actions, and seems, for the most part, to respect traditional Christian laws and
beliefs e.g. “O, that… the Everlasting had not fix’d His canon ‘gainst
self-slaughter,” (I.ii.129-32). Hamlet could justify Claudius’ murder on the
grounds of justice (“an eye for an eye,”) but not on the grounds of revenge
(“turn the other cheek,”), using Christianity.
* * This confusion in the audience’s minds regarding Hamlet’s motives serves
to create a heightened sense of disorder in the play.
Hesitation
Character conflict
Isaac Asimov
Ernest Jones
Although Hamlet, after meeting the Ghost, seems fairly clear in his mind
about his course of action, he procrastinates for a long time about whether
and how and when he should kill Claudius, even passing up a perfect
opportunity to do so (III.iii). It is worth considering why, if Hamlet is so sure of
himself, he hesitates to convert his intentions into actions.
•It could be that the course that fate has set out for Hamlet conflicts with his
personality. We can see from Hamlet’s early exchanges that he is a
philosophical and contemplative character, enjoying verbal and conceptual
duels with his friends. The action that he has sworn to take requires quick and
brutal resolution, and this polarisation of action and nature could be the
reason for Hamlet’s hesitation.
•Another view of Hamlet, advanced by Isaac Asimov in his Guide to
Shakespeare, holds that his actions are attributable not to indecision, but to
multiple motivations: his desire to avenge the wrong done to his father,
coupled with his own ambition to succeed to the throne.
•The tragic error committed by Hamlet, in Asimov's view, is his overreaching
wish to see Claudius damned, and not merely dead, which prevents him from
killing Claudius at the opportune moment.
• Ernest Jones, following the work of Freud, held that Hamlet suffered from the
“Oedipus Complex.” The following is a quote from Jones’ essay The
Oedipus-Complex as An Explanation of Hamlet's Mystery: A Study in Motive:
•“His moral fate is bound up with his uncle's for good or ill. The call of duty to
slay his uncle cannot be obeyed because it links itself with the call of his
•nature to slay his mother's husband, whether this is the first or the second; the latter
call is strongly "repressed," and therefore necessarily the former also.”
•Therefore the audience must not only try to reconcile Hamlet’s inactivity with his
enthusiastic intentions, but must also choose between many different explanations
for this inactivity, creating yet more disorder in the play and in the perceptions of the
audience.
Relationships: Hamlet and Ophelia
Love or not?
G. Wilson Knight
Platonic or not?
Hamlet’s relationships become progressively weaker during the play. At the
start of the play he is, at least outwardly, on good terms with Rosencrantz,
Guildenstern and Ophelia, and is civil towards Gertrude and Claudius, Polonius
and Laertes. None of these relationships survives the play.
*This relationship raises many questions, the two most commonly-asked being
whether Hamlet truly loved Ophelia and whether their relationship was
sexual.
As already discussed, Hamlet’s behaviour towards Ophelia is erratic, and he
goes from sending her gifts, to telling her he never loved her (“I loved you
not,” III.i.117) to telling Laertes that he loved her more than Laertes did.
•G. Wilson Knight believes that Ophelia was Hamlet’s only hope for redemption
after falling into the pit of depression that followed his father’s death.
However “the stupidity of love can have no place in his mind,” writes Knight in
The Wheel of Fire.
•When Ophelia offers him back some old gifts, the voice of cynicism answers:
“No not I; I never gave you aught,” (III.i.94-5). Knight writes that “This is true.
The Hamlet that gave those “remembrances” is dead - as dead as his father.” If
this is the case, then the disorder in the play becomes doubled as we have not
one Hamlet to analyse, but two.
•It is also implied at times that Hamlet and Ophelia had a sexual relationship,
something which would have been frowned upon at the time by both
Protestant and Catholic Christianity, and would have been surprising when
•viewed against Hamlet’s prevailing traditional morality.
•Ophelia sings, admittedly after she has gone mad “before you tumbled me, you
promised me to wed,” (IV.v), although she does later say in the same song that the
events to which she is referring are to take place “tomorrow.”
Setting
The State of Denmark
Historical Context
One of the more famous quotes from Hamlet is “Something is rotten in the
state of Denmark,” (I.iv). This shows Hamlet’s dissatisfaction, not only with his
own fate, but with the setting in which he must follow it.
•Hamlet is disgusted by Danish culture, which at the time included massive
amounts of drinking, feasting and vulgarity at times of celebration. This is
shown when he says of these customs “More honoured in the breach than in
the observance,” (I.iv).
•This adds to the disorder as it adds a new aspect to Hamlet’s battles. He is
fighting on another front, as it were. He is now not only at odds with himself
and with Claudius, but with the whole state of Denmark. This sentiment helps
to externalise and contextualise Hamlet’s pain somewhat; to give it a setting.
•It is worth noting, though only as a footnote, that Shakespeare lived not long
after the Reformation, and that Hamlet contains Catholic concepts such as
purgatory (I.v) which probably would have caused some discomfort in
audiences at the time, under the strongly Protestant Queen Elizabeth.
Metaphysical Setting
Schopenhauer
•It is obvious to any audience of Hamlet that much of Hamlet’s struggles and
conflicts are internal. He is by nature a philosopher and a thinker. In such a
trying situation, it is only natural that such a person would look within himself
for answers.
•To begin with, Hamlet bemoans the fact that he exists at all, saying in his
famous soliloquy “O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw and
resolve itself into a dew!” (I.ii). This creates an interesting paradox when
Hamlet swears his oath of revenge. He now has a strong sense of purpose
allied with an equally strong sense of despair.
•The famous soliloquy beginning “To be or not to be, that is the question,” (III.i)
is generally viewed as a debate on suicide, something of a recurring theme.
Hamlet rather impersonally considers the merits of death, which he compares
to sleep, but finally concludes that the risk of pain in the afterlife makes
suicide an option not worth taking.
•The German philosopher Schopenhauer put it like this: “The essential purport
of the world-famous monologue in Hamlet is, in condensed form, that our
state is so wretched that complete non-existence would be decidedly
preferable to it… There is something in us, however, which tells us that this is
not so, that this is not the end of things, that death is not an absolute
annihilation.”
•This speech creates disorder because it further undermines the audience’s
belief in Hamlet’s willingness to carry out what he has sworn to undertake Hamlet’s seriousness about the task is questioned, eroding the audience’s
•perception of him as the “hero.”
•The first folio of Hamlet includes the line “There is no good or bad but thinking makes
it so,” spoken by Hamlet. Although this was not included in the final version of the
play, it is worth noting as a complete inversion of Hamlet’s way of thinking, as it
rejects an absolute standard of morality in favour of ethical naturalism. This perhaps
shows yet another side to Hamlet.
Other
Characters
Claudius
Motivation
Characterization
•One can argue that his act of fratricide was as motivated by his love of
Gertrude as it was by his love of power, and so label the murder an act of
passion. It could be that he wanted to win Gertrude's love and take Hamlet
under his wing as his own son.
•All of this shows that, although the audience is likely to stick to their original
perception of Claudius as evil, there are questions to be asked: Is Claudius
truly sorry for the fratricide? Did he do it for the crown or for Gertrude? Does
he deserve to die?
Laertes
Relationship to Claudius
Relationship to Hamlet
Order/Disorder
At the beginning of the play, Laertes embodies the idea of order as he is
respectful of the new King and requests his permission to leave the country;
‘my thoughts and wishes bend again towards France, and bow them to your
gracious leave and pardon.’
However, later in the play, Laertes tries to cause immediate disorder upon his
return by threatening Claudius for causing the death of his father; ‘O thou vile
king, give me my father… I’ll not be juggled with to hell allegiance, vows to
the blackest devil, conscience and grace to the profoundest pit! I dare
damnation.’ (4.5.116…133).
When he later discovers that Hamlet was to blame for his father’s death, he
does not try to restore order, but threatens more disorder upon the state of
Denmark by plotting to kill Hamlet; ‘and for that purpose I’ll anoint my
sword… with this contagion, that if I gall him slightly, it may be death.’ The
irony here is that by causing what he would believe to be disorder, he actually
brings about something that will bring the biggest amount of order to the
Danish state – by killing Hamlet, Fortinbras can claim the throne, and it is far
more likely he will make a better ruler.
The irony in his actions perhaps represents the constant imbalance between
order and disorder.
Gertrude
Personality
Relationship to Claudius
Relationship with Hamlet
•There are also many questions to be asked about Gertrude. There has never
been a consensus reached among directors as to exactly how she should be
played. Is she a meek and naïve woman, taken in by Claudius’ scheming? Or is
she a manipulative and ruthless queen, doing whatever is necessary (including
manipulating her own son) to retain the crown?
•Is it even possible that she had a hand in her husband’s death? None of these
possibilities are confirmed or ruled out by Shakespeare in the play. Some
directors, such as Kenneth Branagh, believe that there is evidence of an
incestuous relationship between Gertrude and Hamlet, following Jones’ works
on the Oedipus Complex in Hamlet.
Polonius
20th century productions
Earlier traditions
Polonius and Ophelia
•Most 20th century productions of Hamlet, up until around 1980, cast Polonius
as a senile and pompous old man, and played him for laughs. However,
recently directors have tended to make him younger and have emphasised his
shiftiness rather than his senility.
•Until the 1900s, it was common for the actor that played Polonius also to play
the gravedigger in Act V, and there is a rich tradition of actors that have
excelled in the roles of both Polonius and of the Fool in King Lear. The
gravedigger and the Fool are both extremely quick-witted characters entirely
different to the 20th century fool that Polonius has often been reduced to.
•This all means that it is hard to view Polonius as one character: when
analysing the role one must consider both sides of the man.
•There are also other inconsistencies to Polonius. For example, he lectures
Ophelia on chastity (“Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgement,”
I.iii.69) and then effectively loans her out to Claudius in order to spy on
Hamlet (III.i). What are his true feelings towards his daughter?
Disorder in Hamlet:
Conclusion
Multi-faceted Characters
Degrees of Uncertainty
Degrees of Ambiguity
Complications with:
Characters
Character Relationships
Interweaving Plots
Sub-Plots
In conclusion, much of the disorder in Hamlet stems from the fact that there is
not one major character who can be easily judged and categorised. Every
character is multi-faceted and complex, and none more so than Hamlet
himself. Because Hamlet is so changeable and difficult to read, because he
rarely, if ever, shows the audience or the other characters his true feelings, he
is impossible to analyse with certainty.
This means that the audience has not only to deal with the plot - complicated
in itself - and with the very complex characters with even more complex
relationships, but must entertain many possibilities regarding each character’s
actions, motivations, thoughts and especially their pasts. This creates a play
littered full of interweaving plots and sub-plots, with each major character
always involved in one of them. This makes for much disorder in the play