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Madness in Hamlet: Hamlet and Ophelia

Discusses the dramatic significane of the 'mad' scenes in Shakespeare's play.


The antic disposition of Hamlet and Ophelia are of great dramatic significance. Through out hamlet the categories of madness, both real and faked, are used to convey what the real rational discourse cannot. They also reveal a lot about the characters of hamlet and Ophelia. It is through those scenes of madness that we get to know the real Ophelia, and it is through those scenes that we get to know the opinion of Hamlet and what he thinks of the king, the courtiers and Polonius.

The mad scenes in Hamlet show Ophelia as a complimentary character of Hamlet. The both have experienced the death of a father and they both have some how the same reaction to this death. However, Hamlet plays the role of a mad man while Ophelia really goes mad. It is also important to mention that the death of Ophelia paves the way to Hamlet?s death in the final scene in the play. Ophelia could be very much the feminine side of Hamlet.

In act II of the play, Hamlet decides to put on his ?antic disposition?. He claims that he is putting it for his own purpose. Hamlet is a very intelligent man, university level, and a master of deception. His plan from playing the mad man is to make Claudius believe that he is mad and because he is mad he is not a threat to his life and to the throne. But everyone except Claudius believes Hamlet?s trick. Hamlet?s plan of antic disposition fools everyone except the king.

To prove himself mad Hamlet forces himself into Ophelia?s room and behaves like a conventional mad man. Some critics say that Hamlet?s assuming the role of a mad man helps him do two things. He can tell Ophelia how much he loves her next to protecting his new identity. He wants to convince everybody that his sanity is not due to unclear reason but the outcome of love. Hamlet also knows that Ophelia will report the incident to her father who in turn will report it to the king, and this is Hamlet?s purpose.

Polonius falls for Hamlet?s trick and is proud to say that Hamlet is mad because of his barren love for Ophelia. Hamlet is a royal blood and though he loves Ophelia he cannot choose whom he would marry. He also suggests a plan based on eavesdropping to prove his point.

Hamlet?s madness takes the form of a brilliant but savage satirical wit. He uses the post of madness as a license to say anything he feels like into saying. His role as a mad man allows him to make unmerciful fun of Polonius calling him the tedious old fool, expressing by this his real opinion of him. He also uses madness as an excuse for cruel behavior like when he hurts Ophelia asking her to go join a nunnery which meant a brothel during the Elizabethan age.

Ophelia?s madness contrasts to the prince?s feigned lunacy. Ophelia is the victim of life in Elsinore. She is a girl with no character, constantly told what to do and how to think by various men. She is helpless, wronged by men, with no mother figure to direct her. Hamlet puts her under much pressure expecting her to be better from his mother. Her father uses her as bait, and her brother presses much on her to leave hamlet and not to go deep in her relation with him. She is ?a vessel into which an identity has been poured?.
However, Shakespeare uses madness to reveal to the audience the true Ophelia, Ophelia the woman. She dresses in white, decks herself with ?fantastical garlands? of white flowers, distracted, playing the lute with her hair, symbol of sexuality, down, singing bawdy ballads. Her flowers suggest the double image of female as Shakespeare sees it, the innocent blossoming and the whorish contamination. She is the green girl of pastoral and the sexually mad woman who is giving away her wild flowers and herbs is symbolically deflowering herself. Shakespeare also uses Ophelia's madness to hint that her relation with Hamlet is far more intimate than what everybody thinks. So critics go far in explaining this to suggest that when Ophelia dies she is pregnant with Hamlet?s baby and that is why she kills herself.

The mad scenes allow us to see the contradiction within Ophelia?s self, when she mixes pieces of old songs with lamentation and of obscene allusions, which suggest that her father?s death and her love for Hamlet are associated in her mind. Her insanity is a mixture of love and hate caused by her father and Hamlet. An example of hate is when she sings about the baker?s daughter. She refers to the way her father used to treat her before the tragic incident of his death. The love in her madness appears when she speaks about Valentine?s Day. She refers to the event of romance she was denied.

Madness becomes Ophelia's last resort. Her unconscious is liberated in her insanity. It is through this madness that Ophelia discovers her true identity after she was a mirror reflecting others? desires. Madness releases Ophelia from the enforced repression of obedience, chastity, patience, liberates her form her prescribed role of a daughter, sister, lover, and subject.

Ophelia is very much a parallel Hamlet though her virginal vacant white contrasts with his ?suit of solemn black?; she parallels him in his mourning for his father and love for his mother. In Hamlet this part results in melancholy, for Ophelia the outcome is madness. She is torn between her love to Hamlet and her hatred to the man who killed her father.

Through Ophelia?s madness Shakespeare expresses the dirty secrets of the throne. She becomes the one who undermines authority, speaking ambiguously through pun, illusion, riddle and even veiled thread.

In short, Ophelia is unable to control her grief, lapses into madness and a muddy death, while one of hamlet?s achievements is that he doesn?t go mad but only plays at insanity to disguise his true strength.






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