In both Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet” and in Caught in the Act, a novel by Peter Moore, the main characters have very serious mental illnesses. They are not exactly the same, however they have many similarities. Both of these characters suffer greatly due to their mental illnesses.
Hamlet, the main character of ”Hamlet,” becomes distraught over the death of his father and how his mother was already remarried within the next few months. This leads to the formation of Borderline Personality disorder; this disorder is characterized by “suicidal threats and suicidal gestures that happen relatively frequently” (Shiromoto 1). Throughout the play Hamlet says how he wishes “that God had not made a law against suicide,” (Shakespeare 27) and asks the audience why one would continue to live “when you could simply take out your knife and call it quits” (Shakespeare 141). These suicidal tendencies are only part of the symptoms he shows of this disease, he also exhibits “ angry reactions that are…show more content… This disorder is characterized by “switching to various alternate identities when under stress,” each personality has differences in “manner, voice, gender, and even physical characteristics” (Shiromoto 2). At the beginning of the novel the narrator notices that Lydia, the new girl, seems to change her accent quite a lot. When he talks to her about it, she says that sometimes she feels “quite English” and sometimes she feels “down-home Southern” and that the accent she speaks with “depends on [her] mood” (Moore 41). She also likes to wear many different types of clothing from “black cargo pants and a black long-sleeved shirt” to “ Strawberry Shortcake” (Moore 1-4) and goes by multiple names such as Lynda and Lydia. This disease makes it hard for her to make friends since she changes so drastically so