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Hamlet: A Sane Man

Hamlet: A Sane Man


    Hamlet was indeed a very sane man. He was only feigning madness to further
his own plans for revenge. His words were so cleverly constructed that others
will perceive him as mad.   It is this consistent cleverness that is the ultimate
evidence of his complete sanity. Can a mad person be so clever? No, a mad person
cannot. Hamlet is sane and brilliant.
After Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus see the ghost, Hamlet tells Horatio
that he is going to "feign madness". If Horatio is to notice Hamlet acting
strange it is because he is putting on an act. "How strange or odd some'er I
bear myself/(As I perchance hereafter shall think meet/To put an antic
disposition on)/That you, at such times seeing, never shall,/With arms
encumbered thus, or this headshake ,/Or by pronouncing of some doutful
phrase,/As "Well,well,we know," or "We could an if   we/would,"/Or "If we list to
speak," or "There be an if they/might,"/Or such ambiguous giving-out, to
note/That you know of me-this do swear,/(I,v,190-201).Hamlet states that from
this point forward I may act weird but to ignore my acts of madness for they are
just that, acts, and are in no way a sign of true madness. Only a sane and
rational person could devise such a plan as to act insane to convince others
that he is insane when he actually has complete control over his psyche.
Hamlet only acts mad when he is in the presence of certain characters.
When he is around Polonius, Claudius, Gertrude, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, and
Guildenstern he acts completely irrational. When Hamlet is around Horatio,
Bernardo, Fransico, the players, and the gravediggers Hamlet acts completely
sane.
When Hamlet and Polonius meet in II,ii Hamlet calls Polonius a
fishmonger and makes strange conversation with him. In IV,iii Hamlet refuses to
tell Claudius were he has hidden the body of Polonius and goes on about how
Polonius is at supper. When Hamlet encounters Gertrude in her closet, an unusual
place, in III,iv. He yells at his own...