COLLEGE OF

SOUTHEASTERN

EUROPE

ENG 3108

“Studies in English Literature”

Instuctor: Dr. Panagopoulos

Shakespeare

Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”

Essay 3

Analyze Hamlet's "antic disposition" and his psychological condition in the second Act of the play. How far is Hamlet "mad" in truth, how far is he mad in art and where?

Base your essay on concrete evidence.

By, Fotios Bassayiannis

Student number: 88395

Date: Tuesday, 15 July 2003

In Act II of the play, Hamlet decides to put on his "antic disposition". At this point there are two immediate questions that come to my mind. Namely, what does Hamlet expect to accomplish with that and furthermore how a person who has already demonstrated emotional instability - to say the least - actually goes about doing that? I mean, if the law of double-negation applies in this case then Hamlet should come out of this "antic disposition" looking real sane in mind.

His proclamation that he is going to consciously put on an act of madness for his own purposes, has led to lengthy debates as to the true nature of Hamlet's madness. Though this question can never be answered with any certainty - due to carefully implemented lack of textual evidence by Shakespeare's part - , the fact that Hamlet's sanity had begun to totter before he got the idea of playing mad is significant. It suggests that Hamlet may have decided to play mad because he is afraid of actually going mad and can use the role of madness to mask and relieve his true psychological instability. If this is so then the aforementioned psychological interpretation of Hamlet's assumed madness seems more justified.

After Hamlet's first encounter with the Ghost, Horatio and Marcellus formally swear to keep Hamlet's two secrets, the meeting with the ghost and Hamlet's assumed madness. The peculiarity about this is that they do not - even just a little bit - question Hamlet's decision to put on an "antic disposition."

            Later on, and after the plot of the play implicitly imparts that Hamlet's "madness" has already been noted in the court of Elsinore and has caused some reactions, Polonius offers to explain to the King the very cause of Hamlet's problems. Claudius' immediate reaction to this is positive and he is in fact too impatient to hear Polonius' theory about Hamlet. So he turns to Polonius expectantly.

Although saying that "brevity is the soul of wit," Polonius is so long-winded about getting to the point that the Queen finally interrupts him with the words, "more matter, with less art." But Polonius continues awhile with comically pretentious rhetoric until he finally gets to the point: his daughter has obediently given him a love letter to her from Hamlet. He now proceeds to read this letter which almost rivals his own comic speeches in its over - wrought, conventional love melancholy. It is very important for one to note here that although the letter speaks of  great love it does so in a self-mocking way, as the phrases used to express love although they are undoubtedly powerful, in essence they are nothing more than commonplace clichés. One would of course expect much more from the well-educated and over-sensitive Hamlet when addressing his loved one.

            This goes unnoticed and Claudius, satisfied with Hamlet's love for Ophelia, asks Polonius how she has received his love, and he replies that his duty towards the King led him to tell his daughter that, as the Prince was so far above her, "she should lock herself from his resort, / Admit no messengers, receive no tokens."  She had done this and the result of this rejection of his love, Polonius concludes, has led to Hamlet's progressive madness. Claudius asks Gertrude whether she thinks this is the reason, and she replies, "It may be, very like."

Claudius now asks him what they might do to further investigate his theory and Polonius suggests a plan with which he had evidently come prepared. He says that there is a spot near where they are standing where Hamlet often walks for four hours at a time. "At such a time I'll loose my daughter to him," he suggests, while the King and he observe from behind a hanging tapestry the nature of their encounter. If this does not prove his case, he concludes, "Let me be no assistant for a state / But keep a farm and carters." The King agrees to try Polonius' plan, whereupon Hamlet enters.

John Dover Wilson in What Happens in Hamlet has proposed the theory, which has recently gained widespread critical and theatrical acceptance, that Hamlet entered unobserved at the back of the stage before his announced entrance and thus

overheard the plot.

The Queen notes how "sadly the poor wretch comes reading," and Polonius begs them to leave him alone with Hamlet. He tries to make conversation with Hamlet but Hamlet counters everything he says with apparently mad but actually quite satiric

thrusts. This suggests that his madness at this point is actually feigned. This not a mad man but a very clever individual who makes "good" use of his assumed madness. He calls Polonius a "fishmonger," which also meant a pimp, and tells him that he had better not let his daughter walk in the sun as she may conceive spontaneously like maggots. Wilson uses this to support his theory that Hamlet overheard Polonius' conference with the King, since Polonius' statement to "loose" his daughter to him is language which an Elizabethan pimp would use in reference to his whore.

In any case, Hamlet is speaking very coarsely about Ophelia. Polonius, further convinced by this that Hamlet's madness has resulted from his disappointed love, now asks him what he is reading. After bandying about with this for a while Hamlet finally says that he is reading slanders against old age by a "satirical rogue" who says that "old men have grey beards, that their faces are wrinkled" and "that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams." At this Polonius silently comments, "Though this be madness, yet there is method in't."  This is no less than a hint directly from Mr. Shakespeare himself, to assure us that Hamlet is feigning madness at this point.

This is the first glimpse we gain of Hamlet's supposed "madness" and we see it take the form of brilliant but savage satirical wit. Hamlet is using the post of madness here as a license to say anything he feels like saying. That he genuinely feels Polonius to be a tedious old fool and has no use for such people we know from his own statement, but his role of madman permits him to make unmerciful fun of Polonius. Indeed, Hamlet here exhibits an extreme hatred and bitterness towards Polonius. This might be explained by Hamlet's awareness of Polonius' interference with his love and, possibly, Polonius' plan to use Ophelia against him in the service of Claudius. Our respect for Polonius has been so reduced by this time, however, that we can hardly blame Hamlet for his treatment of him. In his last lines to Polonius moreover, we see that Hamlet is still in the same psychological state in which we first saw him, the rapid alternation between destructive satire and self-destructive melancholy, between hysteria and depression. This state actually constitutes the second and deeper level of his "madness", which cannot be an antic disposition since it is characteristic of him in the whole play - even before Hamlet first meets the Ghost. Note here how well the antic disposition serves as a vehicle that moves Hamlet's soliloquy thoughts and expressions from the domain of lonesome reflection to that of his interaction with others. It can be theorised here that Hamlet's antic disposition serves as the bridge between Hamlet's true desires and beliefs and the reality of Elsinore. Psychologically this is very sound a theory since madness is believed to be nothing more than compulsive behaviour that serves as a tension-relieving valve for inner turmoil. 

After Hamlet meets his two "friends"  he, after a while, states that "there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so," that our understanding of objective reality depends upon our perception of it which differs from individual to individual and from time to time. According to this deduction then, although Hamlet's reason and memory tell him that the earth, heavens and man are beautiful and meaningful, something in his spirit has rendered him incapable of perceiving them that way. Life and the heavens seem sterile and meaningless because man can only come to dust. Why it is he should feel this so deeply that it has warped his whole perception of existence, however, he admits that he does not know. Although he is countering Guildenstern's and Rosencrantz's earlier suggestion, which evidently came from Claudius, that it is disappointed ambition, there is also evident in his words the tone of true confession.

Hamlet is to continue through most of the play to try to analyse what it is that has placed him in this psychological state of depressed inactivity and general irrationality. According to all critics of the play, this is the central mystery of the whole play. Hamlet's statement here, then, is the starting point for the "problem of Hamlet." This, and his "procrastination" problem constitute the heart of all literary criticism of the play.

Later, Hamlet tells Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that they are welcome to Elsinore. More than this, he also tells them that Claudius and Gertrude are deceived about his madness, that he is only mad when he feels like it and can otherwise be perfectly sane, as indeed has been shown in this scene with them. Now this is mighty strange! For, since Hamlet has already concluded that they are spies, he is very careless in making this important admission to them. This can be explained as forgetfulness on Hamlet's part or as further elaborate scheming by him since it is well known that mad people often deny their state of madness.

Whatever the case might be, in my opinion Hamlet is mad in both reality and art. Is Hamlet a mad artist? Or is he an artist of madness? Is madness the art of coping with the often harsh and unfair reality? Or is it just that deep down in every one of us there are repressed thoughts which once released to consciousness, alter the very fabric of reality as we perceive it? Finally, is being "mad" synonymous to being "uncommonly true to reason?"

Is reality this frigtening to Hamlet?

Art by Chad Savage - http://www.sinistervisions.com/