Humanity or Insane Prince?

I am, once again, reading Hamlet; an astounding play about the distressed Prince of Denmark who learns that his father's sdeath was no accident.

"My father's brother, but no more like my father,

than I to Hercules. Within a month,

Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears

Had left the Flushing, in her galled eyes,

She married. O, most wicked speed, to post

With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

It is not, nor it cannot come to good.

But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue."

Shakespeare brilliantly sets the stage with Hamlet noticing the oddity of his mother's marriage to his uncle so quickly after his father's death. His grief and his confusion are evident but he is stopped by the protocol of keeping his mouth shut, for now. He has no proof of foul play and of course, at this point; Hamlet is unaware that his father's ghost may have appeared to his friends.


While some might address Hamlet's character as crazed, or perhaps "gone mad for revenge," I find that the above text sets him up -simply to be a conflicted man. He faces a dilemma for which, presently, he has no solution.

He has been broken by the sheer discovery of his family circumstances. He is enraged at what he feels is a lack of respect on the part of his mother and uncle. And he is confused at what seems to be a mysterious death...that is, his father's. Hamlet's tone throughout the monologue is a process of understanding, an attempt to make sense of the situation.

The human mind, in the midst of difficulty will immediately over-analyze the circumstane, in an attempt to fix what is real verses what they think ought to be.

Among the 5 major stages of grief, accepted in modern psychology, anger ranks as one of the top emotions felt (Denial, Anger, Grieving, Bargining, Acceptance). For Hamlet, anger combined with grief, and drives him to an irrational choice.

But is he truly insane? Or is it, as noted, grief process and experience? Could he be afraid for his own fate?

I am only beginning. I am very interested in studying and reading through more of Hamlet's character- what spectators have said or say for his case and against it. For those of you who have read the play: What do you think?