Deconstructive Lens-Hamlet
While the play Hamlet has withstood the test of time (four centuries to be exact),
there is still debate as to the characterization of Hamlet. Closely analyzing Prince Hamlet
in a deconstructive fashion, it is possible to interpret Hamlet’s actions and emotions as
nothing short of insane. Shakespeare casts a person of royalty, Prince Hamlet, as mentally
deranged in order to illustrate that members of royalty are not demigods born perfect, but
rather human beings equally capable of error, flaw, and emotion.
Shakespeare laces the play Hamlet with several clues pointing towards Hamlet’s
madness. The first glimpse of Hamlet’s mental instability comes in Act 1, when the Ghost
is introduced. Conventional literary critics generally argue that Marcellus, Bernardo,
Horatio, and Hamlet all see the Ghost, and that the Ghost is Hamlet’s father talking
directly to Hamlet in Act 1, Scene 5. While it is plausible that the three guards most likely
saw something ghost-like (or thought they saw something), and maybe Hamlet saw
something he thought was the figure of his father, I reject the idea that Hamlet had a
conversation with the “ghost” of his late father. In life, there are thousands of tales about
spotting a ghost and other paranormal activity, but rarely does one hear a story about a fullfledged conversation with a ghost. Hamlet and the Ghost’s conversation lasts nearly an
entire scene, in explicit detail and lengthy prose, which is hard to believe out of a ghost
which “will not answer” (1,1,62) Marcellus in the first place. The “conversation” is a
manifestation of Hamlet’s craziness, where Hamlet manages to correctly surmise or guess
that Claudius is the murderer of the King. After this imperative scene, we watch Hamlet
bounce, leap, and swan dive into the deep end.
In Act 2, Scene 1, Hamlet appears highly deranged. According to Ophelia, Hamlet’s love
interest and daughter of Polonius, Hamlet approached Ophelia “with his doublet all
unbraced…stockings fouled…as if he had been loosed out of hell…took [her] by the wrist
and held her arm…and raised a sigh so piteous and profound as it did seem to shatter all
his bulk and end his being” (2,1,88). This erratic behavior is obviously insane, and
completely unexplainable for anything other than mental instability. In Act 2, Scene 2, to
open the discussion of Hamlet’s sanity (or lack thereof), Polonius mentions to the King and
Queen that Hamlet “sometimes walks four hours together in the lobby” (2,2,173). Soon
after, Hamlet himself enters the scene, and promptly addresses Polonius as a “fishmonger”
(2,2,190), a rather rough insult to a royal advisor. Then Hamlet addresses his love interest,
Polonius’ daughter, as a “good kissing carrion if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog”
(2,2,197). This unpredictable conduct is followed by Hamlet asking the actors of the
court’s play to reenact his father’s death. Hamlet greets the actors with positive giddiness,
saying “welcome good friends…why, thy face is valanced since I saw thee last!...Come,
give us a taste of your quality, come, a passionate speech!” (2,2,445). This energy is quite
unexpected from a teenager who’s father was just murdered by his uncle, rushed into bed
with his mother, and who just called the King’s advisor a fishmonger. Hamlet then
proceeds to ask the actor to insert “a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines” (2,2,566) into
the court’s play, which lay out details of his own father’s murder. Hamlet’s chipper
attitude and deranged idea to ask the actor’s to essentially reenact his father’s death verges
upon insanity. After news of Hamlet’s crazy visit with Ophelia, Hamlet’s pacing for hours
in the palace lobby, Hamlet’s insults towards Polonius, and chipper attitude towards the
actors set to reenact his own fathers’ death, it becomes apparent to readers very early into
the play that Hamlet is indeed mad.
While Polonius might think “though this be madness, yet there is method in’t (2,2,222), in
regards to Hamlet, there is defiantly a method to Shakespeare casting Prince Hamlet as
mad. Shakespeare aims to deflate royalty as superior beings born to perfection, and
portrays them as humans equally susceptible to flaw, error, and emotion. Hamlet captures
these emotions perfectly throughout the play from beginning to end. It has been established
that Hamlet ventures upon madness, and Shakespeare thus wrote it in order to point out
that members of court are still susceptible to human flaw and craziness. When Hamlet
plots to kill Claudius in his mother’s bedroom, he stabs the male figure which enters the
room, which happens to be Polonius. Shakespeare intentionally sets up Hamlet to stab the
wrong man in his delusional rage in order to point out that even royalty can make mistakes,
humble or grave. Finally, the unique father-son relationships Shakespeare creates between
King of Denmark and Hamlet, King of Norway and Fortinbras, and Polonius and Laertes
demonstrates that royalty are fathers and sons, capable of dying, and capable of grieving.
While conventional literary criticism would accept Hamlet’s behavior as rational due to his
father’s death, the text also supports that Hamlet is psychotic. The ghost which Hamlet
converses with might exist, but it is highly unlikely that the long conversation between
Hamlet and the ghost actually took place. Rather, it is merely a manifestation of Hamlet’s
insanity. Hamlet’s madness explodes in Act 2, where he stumbles in on Ophelia, insults her
father, and asks actors to reenact his father’s death. Shakespeare intentionally makes a
royal figure appear sociopath in order to prove that members of royalty are susceptible to
human flaw, emotion, and error as demonstrated by Hamlet’s madness, Polonius’
unintentional death and the loss of three different royal fathers.