Hamlet “Madness” Essay
At the beginning of the play, Hamlet’s father, King Hamlet, has recently died, and his mother, Queen Gertrude, has married the new king, Hamlet’s uncle Claudius. Hamlet is melancholy, bitter, and cynical, full of hatred for his uncle and disgust at his mother for marrying him. When the ghost of Hamlet’s father appears and claims to have been murdered by Claudius, Hamlet becomes obsessed with avenging his father’s death but keeps thinking of reasons why he should wait before killing Claudius, then chastises himself for failing to act boldly. Hamlet is a character of contradictions So throughout the play we can see that Hamlet is very prone to getting very mad at times for the littlest things. He sees a ghost who tells him things. He is constantly over estimating things as well. His relationship with his mother is very strong and when he finds out she will marry his uncle he isn’t very happy of this decision. At the same time this is happening Hamlet and Ophelia seem to have a thing but the only reason he has some interest in her is she reminds him of his mother. Then after everything that has been happening Ophelia then drowns in a river. Polonius’s son, Laertes, who has been staying in France, returns to Denmark in a rage. Claudius convinces him that Hamlet is to blame for his father’s and sister’s deaths. When Horatio and the king receive letters from Hamlet indicating that the prince has returned to Denmark after pirates attacked his ship en route to England, Claudius concocts a plan to use Laertes’ desire for revenge to secure Hamlet’s death. Laertes will fence with Hamlet in innocent sport, but Claudius will poison Laertes’ blade so that if he draws blood, Hamlet will die. As a backup plan, the king decides to poison a goblet, which he will give Hamlet to drink should Hamlet score the first or second hits of the match. Then there is sword fighting. Hamlet scores the first hit, but declines to drink from the king’s proffered goblet....
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