Hamlet Story

Hamlet was a man that will be studied for the rest of time. The complication of the story is enough to raise argument let alone Hamlet the man. Was Hamlet crazy? Nobody knows and will ever know. The entire play there are signs of his insanity but there are also signs that he was putting a big joke on to the people around him that he so hated and distrusted. His true character is never revealed throughout the entire play. The identities and changes he goes through prove that. Many things happened around him and he was in the heart of them. His attitudes throughout the play reflect his turmoil inside of him. Every new thing that came his way he had a different way of looking at or dealing with. He was never completely honest with himself let alone anyone around him, even his closest peers. The killing of a harmless man showed how much pain he was in. He may have become crazy over it. Putting trust into a ghostlike figure that could led to his downfall in the end. All these are factors that played a role in his insanity. The attitude as well as the identity of Hamlet was never the same throughout the play. In the opening he seemed confused and almost apathetic. It seemed he had given up on life to a point. Everything in his life was not worth caring about. His father had died before the play had opened which was a life crusher to Hamlet. Hamlet senior was someone that Hamlet loved and respected with all his heart. What made the situation of Hamlet's feelings worse was when his mother marries King Hamlet's brother Claudius. Hamlet could forgive him for taking over the kingship and not caring about his father. He despised his mother for marrying after just two months of his father's death had passed. His heart was filled with turmoil and grief that could not be expressed or let go of. Hamlet let no one into his heart. He showed no signs of happiness and this is obvious in act I scene II when the first thing Claudius asks him is "How is it that the clouds still hang on you?" That line opened up the situation with Hamlet in the play. The first topic Hamlet deals with is the death of his father and the questioning of a stepfather. That is the first thing revealed about Hamlet's identity. The identity of Hamlet changed throughout the play as well. When dealing with Ophelia, He denied his love for her but when she died the first thing he says about her upon his return home was that he loved her. The scene with the clown who was digging Ophelia's grave is another example. Hamlet acted cool around him so he could get as much information out of him as possible. His madness almost seemed to cease in that scene. Whenever he was around Claudius he would show him signs of being crazy in the way that he talked and presented himself. Nobody could tell if he was really mad or if he was just putting on an act because when he would talk to Horatio, he had honesty in his words and told him that it was all a big game. That is why it makes it so hard to say if Hamlet was truly crazy or not. It takes a madman not to admit he is crazy. Polonius is slain by Hamlet in act III scene IV. He hides in the queen's chamber when she says she hears him coming. Hamlet enters the room like a madman full of rage not knowing which way he wants to turn with his decisions. In his rage, he heard a man cry out from behind the curtain. He drew his sword and slain him without even knowing it was him. Hamlet had known it was not the king for earlier he had saw the King praying in the chapel yet he asks the question "Nay I not know. Is it the King?" He knew full well it was the not the king. It was a cry for help or for attention. He wanted his mother to finally open her eyes and see what was going on. It took the action of killing an innocent man for Hamlet to get across his message to his mother and the rest of the Kingdom that he was hurting. It was almost like he was crying to tell everyone about what the ghost had told him and what not just so everybody knew. One of Hamlet's major downfalls is that he kept to himself the entire play. It made situations grow worse and more complicated. In the end, the lives of six people in the play could have been saved if Hamlet would have done things differently including his own life. The point is that Hamlet knew it