Hamlet Quote Essay

            “Though this be madness, yet there is method in't” now rephrased as “There is method in his madness” A line so short and simple but would reverberate forever in the minds of those who heard it. This famous line is said the character Polonius as an aside during his conversation with Prince Hamlet in Act II Scene II.  

This line reveals to the audience that a major character is discovering that Hamlet is not simply insane. Now that other characters in the story do not believe their original thoughts that the boy was losing it due to his grief and confusion Hamlet must change up his strategy. It can also be inferred Polonius the ever so wordy will pass this information onto Claudius and Gertrude. It is a clear indicator to the audience that Hamlet is not the confused and weak boy so many will say in reviews and poor analysis of him. He is a fairly static character set with a plan from the beginning only requiring he map out a course of action.

As for how this adds to the big picture of the story it serves as the summation of the entire story which is based on deceit and lies. The madness Hamlet exults is no more than a charade that continues until the death of the person who spoke the famous line. Once he kills Ophelia’s father the circumstance changes but the story does not. He is still like from early on pursuing his vengeance and trying to kill and damn Claudius.

Even before the first cold blooded act of homicide committed by the Prince the tone of the play grows darker as the scheme starts to become real. The deception was not all for naught as the supposed lunatic who is now depicted by the author through his actions and not mere details. Things from that point on become faster paced as Claudius now devises a plot to remove him from the country and eventually have him assassinated in England. Gertrude is frightened of her son who is now a murderer just like her newly wed husband.

In the end the quote, “Though this be madness, yet there is method in't” continues to be uttered and is known to most people even those that have not read Shakespeare. For Hamlet this marks a turning point for the storyline, characterization of Hamlet, and the tone of the play. From that point onward the play goes from Hamlet setting up his ambush to it rushing out of seemingly nowhere to until he can enact his revenge.       

Hamlet Essay: The Madman(?)

Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays; it is also one of the most open to interpretation. Modern viewers of the play see the protagonist as a nut job that experiences delusions such as the ghost of his father, is fickle in making his decision, and insane. All literature is open to personally interpretation, but these claims remain only bolstered by the fallacies of authority and popular opinion. Hamlet is none of these things people ascribe to him.

To understand the story we must look at it from its origin, England four hundred years ago. Not much is known of William Shakespeare’s life most of it is mystery and speculation. Looking at the beliefs of the people in the period Hamlet does not seem insane but to follow the norms of the time. This ghost is not a sign of schizophrenia, to the audience in the main religious sects this was a possibility, so the author is not portraying him as a lunatic. We also know the ghost isn’t just a figment of his own imagination because in the first scene the tower guards were able to see it too. Most of the antics he does are to mask the fact that he one knows about how Hamlet Senior actually died and two to deceive other characters into thinking he’s lost his mind where in reality it is a ploy. So he fools Polonius’ family into believing his lie by acting like a wild animal for Ophelia and with his pretty one-sided conversation with Polonius. From the standpoint of the characters he is mad but this is a trick the audience knows he is doing. And from the perspective of the audience with his visions of the dead and other now seen as mythological things was not absorbed as it is today.

Most commentary seems to follow the general assumption that the prince is indecisive. How can one determine if this is true or not? From reading the text we discover that the boy is fairly certain he will exact his revenge just not sure of how to do so without ending up dead himself. Having not arrived at the ending to witness the righteous moment of regicide we can infer only a few things. From the method he simply stabbed Polonius and disposed of his body assuming it was Claudius it’s fair to say that would be his original plan. Now that others are aware of his intent he may need to find a stealthier approach especially since the monarchs will now be paranoid they could be next. The ease he possessed during his killing of the royal advisor displayed that he did not hesitate to go through with the act. Not only through his actions in the middle of the play but in his words has he spoken to the audience of his want to avenge his father. This is not only said and shown but if we look at the plot wondering what Hamlet’s motives are then more of the events go from looking like insanity to a mastermind meticulously plotting the demise of Claudius.

As for questioning the psychology of the main character it is a play only the asides do they reveal their inner thoughts the rest is seen and not told. Those who accuse Hamlet of being a psychopath seem mislead since the scholars at the time didn’t understand almost anything about the human body or mind. Bleeding was the way to get better if you were sick. Many heroes outside of the saints for the contemporaries were warriors that did kill when they had to. So Hamlet’s actions were not seen as vile or cruel but just. As for how he feels about killing Claudius, a terrible person who is a murdered that poisoned his father and married his mother afterward, is empathetic. He does yearn to send him to Hell yet does not simply go on a rampage of the royal court and guards so he has to move slowly to hurt only who he wants to punish. This is not a mental problem it is genius.

By the end of a skim or spark notes reading Hamlet may appear to be a crazy boy who suffers from hallucinations, being undecided and mental problems. This however does not hold to scrutiny he does the things he must in the play for retribution of Hamlet Senior, to bamboozle other characters, and to hide his true motives. Hamlet is not insane, psychopathic, nor deranged. He is a regular young man facing his nadir; his life has changed dramatically, his father is gone, and a tyrant has taken his lineages throne. Making the choice of whether to dispose of Claudius is not the thing he spends so much time contemplating but how and when to do what needs to be done to restore the throne.     

Performative Utterance

"For much of the play Hamlet is able to speak but not do" – He knows what he wants to do but is stopped by his conscience and attempt to be surgical in killing only Claudius

The theory is centered on these main concepts

Lucutionary force the ability of a language to deliver a message, - the illocutionary force a mutual intelligibility and perlocutionary force that which is achieved by being said

Harold Bloom argues that the characters in Shakespeare's work develop through "self-overhearing"

The characters show their true selves to the audience unlike anything preceding it

This Performative Utterance is best displayed in the scene when Hamlet Senior, the ghost, converses with the young prince

When the person hell-bent on doing a thing does that it is classified as perlocutionary this is from the sheer utterance

Hamlet swore explicitly to remember his great father and implicitly to avenge his family’s pride by enacting his revenge on Claudius

Being too overdramatic can make the portrayal of the character seem unnatural or disingenuous to the viewers

The deluded Polonius thinks of himself to have mastered the “True Self” that Aristotle spoke of how all knowledge stems from self-knowledge

This character Polonius has the utterance and role that show mankind in his transition from the Dark Ages to Rebirth and towards Enlightenment

Hamlet is much more like a normal man today

Hamlet follows and judges himself much more than others this is pursuit of self-knowledge the Greeks spoke of

As a character Hamlet starts off as more faith and loyalty based and changes abruptly to action and consequence based