Madness in Hamlet PDF

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Madness in Hamlet, key quotes/critics...

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Madness

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Hamlet’s madness is real and Ophelia’s madness is real Hamlet’s madness is feigned vs Ophelia’s real madness

Anna K. Bardo- psychological criticism in which Nardo uses the double bind theory to explain Hamlet + Ophelia’s madness, the theory contends that a person who is receiving two different mutually exclusive demands from a family member e.g. Hamlet’s mother ( marrying uncle, acts as a detachment but then asks for Hamlet’s love)+ deceased father (asking him to avenge his death but do nothing to his mother) place double bind situation + Nardo argues that Hamlet’s feigned madness is how he escapes true madness + Ophelia's also caught in double bind situation (Polonius tells her to be both chaste + to wind Hamlet over with her body) T.S Eliot- ‘For Shakespeare, it is less than madness and more than feigned. Levity of Hamlet, his repetition of phrase, his puns, are not part of a deliberate plan of dissimulation, but a form of emotional relief.’ Alexander W. Crawford- ‘Hamlet deliberately feigned fits of madness(to)...disconcert the King.’ Elaine showalter in Representing Ophelia notes that ‘the mad Ophelia’s bawdy songs and verbal licence ...seem to be her one sanctioned form of self assertion as a woman.’

Key Quotations: “As I perchance hereafter shall think meet…to put an antic disposition on.” (Act 1, Scene 5 Hamlet) “Mad for thy love? My lord I do not know/ But truly I do fear it.” (Act 2, Scene 1 Polonius and Ophelia) “Something have you heard/of Hamlet’s transformation; so call it” (Act 2, Scene 2 Claudius to R + G) “Your noble son is mad/ Mad I call it, for to define true madness, what is ‘t but to be nothing else but mad?” (Act 2, Scene 2 Polonius) “I am but mad north-north west; when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.” (Act 2, Scene 2 Hamlet to R + G) “I essentially am not in madness/but mad in craft.” (Act 3, Scene 4 Hamlet to Gertrude) “One incapable of her own distress.” (Act 4, Scene 7 Gertrude on Ophelia) “Poor Ophelia/ Divided from herself and her fair judgement.” (Act 4, Scene 5 Claudius)...