Query: madness in hamlet

title: Is Hamlet's Madness True or Faked?
abstract: The article discusses Hamlet's artificial madness by examining his own declarations of intent, his witticisms and intellectual constructions, as well as his relation with Ophelia. The argument is set against the backdrop of a few classical examples of Shakespearean criticism holding idealizing views.

title: The Implication of Hamlet's Madness

title: The Implication of Hamlet's Madness

title: Hamlet: The Rationality of Madness in a World Under Surveillance

title: A Narrative Case Study of Hamlet and the Cultural Construction of Western Individualism, Diagnosis, and Madness
abstract: There is no story in Western literature that epitomizes the dominant Western discourse of individualism as clearly, and its effects as boldly, as Shakespeare's Hamlet. "This above all: to thine own self be true" (I.iii.78) is the cornerstone of Western individualism and the discourse of the individual over the relational. Though Hamlet was written over 500 years ago, the theme of individualism parallels strongly with the present Western construction of madness in mental health. In this article, a narrative case study of Hamlet is presented as a creative vehicle to explain narrative therapy and to challenge the individualized notion of madness by decentering it, unpacking it, and making it visible (Derrida, 1997; White, 1991) It is proposed in Hamlet that self subjugation related to individualizing discourse, coupled with corresponding discourses concerning duty, honor, and gender, influence Shakespeare's characters' abilities to communicate and to polyvocally negotiate the meaning of events in their live.

title: The Impact of the Two Murdered Fathers on Madness and Death of Hamlet and Ophelia
abstract: The murder of King Hamlet by his own brother, Claudius, and usurping his crown and queen, results in other murders such as the murder of Polonius. The murder of their fathers enhances madness and death of Hamlet and Ophelia. They suffer seriously from betrayal, resentment, and isolation Hamlet fakes madness to avoid being assassinated by Claudius and to accomplish his revenge. Madness enables Hamlet to have his revenge just before his death. While Ophelia gets really mad when she loses her father and Hamlet's love, lost in sorrow till she drowns accidently. Ophelia's madness and death change her minor character into an effective one.

title: The Eroticized Neurotic: Envisioning Female Madness in William Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' and Sarah Kane's '4.48 Psychosis'

title: The Mask of Madness Identity and Role playing in Shakespeare's Hamlet
abstract: In Hamlet, Shakespeare explores the notion of identity by making the characters, especially Hamlet, question the role they must perform under extreme circumstances. He presents madness as a strategy of disguise, for only as a madman is Hamlet able to unveil the state's corruptness. However, his presumably acted out behaviour becomes problematic, for it makes both the other characters and the audience question whether such a performance is a purely feigned act or not. This essay aims to draw a connection between madness and role playing. I approach the topic from the perspective of what it discloses about one's identity. Moreover, Hamlet works as a close representation of Elizabethan theatre. It serves as a demonstration of one of the most recurrent literary techniques in Shakespearean drama, metatheatre. The numerous references to role playing and theatre suggest that not only Hamlet's conduct, but everything is being feigned.

title: The Feigned Madness of Ulysses and Hamlet: A Derridean Reading of Cartesian Cogito
abstract: Ulysses, the towering mythological figure and the hero of the world's most famous epic The Odyssey, put on the pretence of madness to shirk the Trojan War. This is not mentioned in Homer, but in Fabulae by Gaius Julius Hyginus. Similarly, Hamlet put on an "antic disposition" after the ghost exhorted him to kill King Claudius. In these two cases taken from mythology and literature, and pertaining to the Classical period and the Elizabethan age respectively, intelligent characters put on the pretence of madness, in their battle with society though they are in control of their senses. It is the aim of this paper to examine the dynamics of reason and non reason when combined and brought so close to one another, that they could be easily confounded, in light of Derrida's reading of Descartes' formulations about reason. Since the two examined works pertain to the Classical and Elizabethan ages respectively, the paper will shed light on the historical background of madness in these periods to give a broader perspective of reason and madness in these works.

title: A Foucauldian Shakespearean Reading of the Twin Motifs of Love and Madness in Malcolm Bradbury's Eating People Is Wrong
abstract: Undertaking a careful examination of Malcolm Bradbury's academic novel Eating People Is Wrong (1959) by drawing on Michel Foucault's Madness and Civilization (1965) and on William Shakespeare's Hamlet, this paper's author argues that some individuals, capitalizing on the old established connection between love and madness, choose to act insane to win others' sympathy and affections and that their strategy may not always live up to their expectations. The strategy itself, it will be clear, is a reflection of their social superiors' desire to punish or banish them, of the universal antipathy towards the mad, and of the proclivity for maltreating them. The author also aims to prove that madness is not always the inevitable result of unreciprocated love and that it may as well be brought about by a loveless life. The paper concludes that madness, be it real or sham, never ceases to preoccupy us and that no matter how hard we try to extend sympathy to the mad, they generally continue to occupy the bottom of the social hierarchy. In addition to the foregoing thematic pursuits, it is also hoped that the reader will be given a helpful insight into the academic novel subgenre, which deserves to gain more ascendancy in the literary scene.