Sunday, March 1, 2009
Insane in the Membrane
Hamlet doesn't pretend to be mad. He is mad. I can understand how he would feel if his father was killed and his mother moved on to the murderer right away. However, I'm pretty sure that he was "pretending" to be mad to cover up his real insanity. As one reads Hamlet, it's easy to see that this guy is crazy. When he tries to act crazy, it seems as if he turns out be more mad when he's just being himself. Take, for example, when he kills Polonius. Who in their right mind would stab a man to death through a curtain (a man who did not kill one's father) and at the same time totally pass up the chance to knife the guy who really did kill your father? Clearly, Hamlet is phsyco. Perhaps he just has anger issues, but still. I'm not a fan of this character. Ophelia's madness seems to be this crazy-happy madness. She is just totally gone, while Hamlet was still plotting during his madness. Both of these character's crazyness does occur rather quickly. One minute they're decently normal, the next their killing people, or themselves. Ophelia, however, probably became more insane the second the stuck her in a padded room in a straight jacket. That would definitely make me go a little crazy, let alone the fact that the guy she just hooked up with stabbed her own father to death. These two characters have a ton of personal baggage, if you ask me. But honestly, I think Shakespeare does a pretty poor job of really portraying these characters as crazy. They just seem a little off, not totally wacked out. Perhaps I just don't totally understand Shakespeare. That's probably it. Either way, I didn't find myself much invested in these characters, so as things played out, I wasn't really affected either way.
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4 comments:
Sarah,
You seem both most befuddled by, and interested Shakespeare's differing portrayal of his characters' madness (Hamlet's and Ophelia's). This could be an interesting approach to your next essay, though I'm not certain enough from this post what you really think about all this. Maybe we can get together and chat at some point.
sarah,
I would have to agree with you, when you say that Hamlet wasn't acting mad, he was mad. As you said he was even more insane when he wasn't trying to pretend his madness. Maybe it all started off as an act then later as it progressed it became more realistic until it got to the point where his acting was inferior to his actual actions.
I agree with you when you say that Hamlet really WAS mad. I think that like Will said in his post the acting on top of acting adds a sense of confusion. But I also think it adds a sense of reality. Even though it may just be "acting" (like Hamlet pretending he is mad) the chance of it becoming reality and making the story that much more intense greatly justifies Shakespeare's idea of how his characters should be portrayed.
I disagree with you when you say that hamlet was truley mad. Hamlet was shakespears gateway for almost every truly inspiring and highly intelectual lines, i really dont think shakespear was actually trying to make hamlet seem crazy. even as he wavered in his actions and his mind(whn he feigned crazy) he held his intellectual at a high level and used it to his desire. he never did things out of self and acted always for a purpose. although lavender might want us to see him not as a man of action, he is what drives the play to tradgedy. hamlet was what shakespear used almost everytime,to add what he saw as important to the play, and to think of him as crazy, in my opinion would discredit shakespear and his play.
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