The Theme Of Madness in "Hamlet" By W.Shakespeare

I truly believe that madness should be very concerned in our society nowadays because people around us need help. Mad people are always found isolated and therefore, they have no one to talk to. People these days should be more concerned about their lonely and depressed friends because suicide in Canada is a major concern. According to Statistics Canada, in 2009 there were 3,890 suicides in Canada, a rate of 11.5 per 100,000 people.

In Hamlet by Shakespeare, we see that there were a lot of false madness signs and all this ties up to one specific person which is Ophelia.

In my opinion, Ophelia’s death was suiciciadale because first of all, she loses her dad, then she loses her mind and that drove her insane and in the end she killed herself by drowning herself. All this began to appear when she started showing her madness throughout the play.

I believe that madness comes from two different ways: losing someone that you really loved and that you were very close with or being rejected and excluded from society.

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At one point, Ophelia states the following “I shall obey my lord.” By this quote, it might not necessarily show her madness, but I can tell you right now that this is a hint to Ophelia’s madness in the play. She was giving up herself obeying authority without asking any questions. Ophelia was always there for her father and no only that but she was always obeying him and letting him know that his thoughts and words were always filling her mind and she also gave him a lot of intentions.

After her father’s loss, all of these thoughts were taken away from her mind so she has nothing left and that means that she doesn’t know anything else in life. "I hope all will be well. We must be patient, but I cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay him i' th' cold ground. My brother shall know of it, and so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies. Good night, sweet ladies. Good night, good night." Ophelia was going all crazy after seeing everything in her life changing. She then keeps foreshadowing her contemplation of suicide convincing herself that everything might work out in the end after all.

All the readers can now tell how she would never be able to look in à positive way in changing her life and that she would never outlook this situation because she has been into such a deep depression and anxiety. Next thing we know is her trying to get away of all these insane problems she has been going through and she quits the world by killing herself.

In conclusion, the theme of madness in hamlet came from loss and isolation as we can see in Ophelia’s case. In Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2, Shakespeare says the following “though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.”