Madness plays an important role in the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. It is a theme that pushes Hamlet, along with a handful of characters, to their breaking point. While Hamlet’s madness is said to have been “acting”, as the play progresses, the audience starts to question his true motifs. Is he really insane? Is he just an amazing actor? Is he so convincing that he himself eventually goes crazy? This effective plot device raises many doubts and pushes the story forward through the use
Madness: The Enabler Many of William Shakespeare's tragedies have a character that seems to go mad. The madness often acts as a catalyst to the story and to the characters downfall. Many historians and critics explore Shakespeare's seemingly obsessive need to include madness in his stories. Historians have tried to determine why he included this and what influences affected his decision to make his tragic characters go insane. Many people say the worst thing in the world is mental illness because
In Hamlet, scepticism acts as the catalyst of the play by creating doubt through illusion, and thus, rendering the characters as well as the audience to question the representation of truth. The passage fuels the speculative nature of the play in relation to Hamlets insanity and further developing an understanding of the mainstream of the play being limitations of perception. This extract brings to the forefront the inability to represent reality and comprehend truth, particularly in the protagonist's
plays are set in foreign areas. One clear instance of this can be found in another Shakespearean tragedy, Hamlet, set in Denmark. The play is littered with examples of spying, lurking, and deception making it one of the more recognizable motifs. In fact, the scene that initiates much of the action involves Polonius eavesdropping on a conversation between Hamlet and his mother, Gertrude. When Hamlet senses another presence in the room (though he remains unaware of its identity), he thrusts his sword at
Brave New World and Equus and are both texts portraying societies that do not tolerate the individual; they demand spiritual uniformity. Similarly, T.S Eliot's poetry depicts spiritual desolation: of a Europe projected into turmoil after WWI. People could not reconcile their thoughts to a benign God that would allow mass slaughter. Brave New World is set in a dystopian future at approximately 2542 A.D. After a cataclysmic war, the society created is devoid of suffering to the extent that it has become