A Woeful Trap... Act 1 In Hamlet :: essays research papers

Is he mad or sane? Or just mad in craft, yet punished with painful distractions. Perhaps Hamlet is the victim--as we only at some time feel to be--of the worlds sane view of insane perplexities. He is the man at war indoors himself a traveler with a passport into strange, twilight regions of the soul. Whether or not Hamlets suffering, and then insanity, is caused by his relations or by his own melancholy, Hamlets struggle embodies the requisite inwardness of human suffering that all can relate to.The concrete manifestations of Hamlets misery are closely related. Not only has his father died, also his uncle is the murderer, his get under ones skin marries the uncle and is a likely accessory to the crime, and his true love lies to him. It is reasonable to suppose that Hamlets state of mind becomes more and more unstable as he is consumed with thoughts of all of the sins against him. Eventually Hamlet loses all sense of lifes significance. He states to his deceitful mother and unc le, "But I have that within which passes show These but the trappings and the face of woe" (I, II, 85-86). Hamlet tries to articulate that his grief for his fathers death and the prospect of his mothers unfaithfulness is almost inexpressible. He is left alone to bear the burden of suspicion toward the sight he erst loved. To a man bereft of a sense of purpose there is no possibility of action because it wouldnt have any meaning. No act but suicide seems rational.Yet Hamlet seeks to escape his life of woe when he is commanded by his fathers spirit to a great act--revenge. Therein lies the unique opportunity for a sick soul to heal, to be cleansed and rested. But good cannot come of evil, and so the sickness of his soul only further infects his state of being. His mental disintegration, once proposed to be on purpose, continues uncontrolled. In the desert of his mind, void with the utter emptiness of the knowledge of death (his fathers and the death of his faith in his mot her) lies the supreme enemy to psychoneurotic despair romantic love. For romantic love assures power, it can create a sense of purpose, inspire heroism and beauty.