Hamlet And Insanity

7 Pages 1834 Words

“I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw” (2.2.338-9). This is a classic example of the “wild and whirling words” (1.5.133) with which Hamlet hopes to persuade people to believe that he is mad. These words, however, prove that beneath his “antic disposition,” Hamlet is very sane indeed. Hamlet is saying that he knows a hunting hawk from a hunted “handsaw” or heron in other words, that, very far form being mad, he is perfectly capable of recognizing his enemies. Beneath his strange choice of imagery involving points of the compass, the weather, and hunting birds, he is announcing that he is calculatedly choosing the times when to appear mad. The dictionary defines sanity as “soundness of mind” and I will prove that Hamlet is sane through many examples that show of his soundness of the mind. Hamlet warned his friends he intended to fake madness, but Gertrude as well as Claudius saw through it, and even the slightly dull-witted Polonius was suspicious. His public face is one of insanity however, in his private moments of soliloquy, through his confidences to Horatio, and in his careful plans of action, we see that his madness is assumed. Samuel Johnson, a well respected author , has “no doubt that the hero’s ‘madness’…was merely ‘pretended’”(Neill, 309). After the Ghost’s first appearance to Hamlet, Hamlet decides that when he finds it suitable or advantageous to him, he will put on a mask of madness so to speak. He confides to Horatio that when he finds the occasion appropriate, he will “put an antic disposition on” (1.5.172). Mark Van Doren poins out in his book “Shakespeare,” that Hamlet’s “antic disposition” is used “as a device for seeming mad” (162). This strategy gives Hamlet a chance to find proof of Claudius’ guilt and to contemplate his revenge tactic. Although he has sworn to avenge his father’s murder, he is not sure of th...