MADNESS
● Madness is used to allow for free speech
Madness was ‘dramatically useful’ as it allowed the ‘combination in a single figure of tragic
hero and buffoon, to whom could be accorded the licence of the allowed fool in speech and
action.’ (Mack)
- Ophelia (IV.V, pg.110): After Polonius’ death she appears mad, and passes invisible
flowers to people- rosemary (traditionally carried by mourners at funerals), pansies
(name is derived from the French word pensie, meaning “thought” or
“remembrance”), fennel (a quick-dying flower symbolising sorrow), columbines (a
flower symbolising affection, often given to lovers), and daisies (symbols of
innocence and purity, and the flower of the Norse fertility goddess Freya). She has no
violets left (‘they withered all when my father died’). Being symbols of modesty, often
tied to the Virgin Mary, this suggests that Ophelia no longer cares about upholding
the social norms of chastity that were imposed upon her by Polonius especially.
CONTEXT: During the reign of Queen Elizabeth (1533-1603), known as the Virgin Queen, a
woman's purity was highly prized when male suitors picked or romanced a single woman.
- Ophelia (IV.V, pg. 105): “Larded with sweet flowers / Which bewept to the grave did
not go / With true-love showers”. This alludes to Gertrude never properly mourning
her husband but marrying his brother instead. As Ophelia sings about the unvisited
grave, the ‘true love showers’ juxtapose the clear signs of Getrude’s lack of love by
her dismissal of mourning.
CONTEXT: In general, it was not uncommon for widows to remarry within the first year of
their husband’s death. Gertrude’s period of being a widow would have been considered quite
short, though.
- Hamlet (II.II, pg.50): Polonius asks ‘do you know me, me lord?’ to which Hamlet
responds with the ironic remark, ‘You are a fishmonger.’ ‘Fishmonger’ is polysemic
here. Being a low class occupation, it insults Polonius’ status. Being the Elizabethan
slang for pimp, Hamlet euphemistically suggests that Polonius has been willing to
commodify his own daughter’s happiness in exchange for earning Claudius’ favour.
Through pretending not to recognize Polonius by feigning madness, this allows him
to mock and insult the counsellor to the king.
● Shakespeare explores the causes and treatment of madness
‘Shakespeare took seriously the view that excessive or unrequited love could lead to
mental distraction.’ (Tosh)
-Polonius discussing Hamlet (II.II, pg. 49): Although Polonius is wrong, this suggests
that excessive or unrequited love could lead to madness as Tosh argues. Hamlet’s
love letter to Ophelia convinces Polonius that it is Hamlet’s love for Ophelia which
has driven him mad: he ‘Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,/ Thence to a watch,
then into a weakness,/ Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension/ Into the
madness wherein now he raves.’
CONTEXT: Melancholy and madness were seen as linked in Elizabethan England- Robert
Burton published the ‘Anatomy of Melancholy’ in 1621 which explored the ailments of
melancholy and symbols of melancholic types, including a ‘madman’. In Kyd’s ‘Spanish
Tragedy’ (1615), both the hero and his wife are sent mad in horror of their son’s murder.
, Elaine Showalter has noted, female melancholy was considered to fall into a whole
different category, connected not with genius but with sexuality and sexual frustration.
- Laertes observing Ophelia (IV.V, pg. 110): Ophelia is seen by her brother Laertes
as a ‘document in madness’. As in Burton’s Anatomy, her insanity is connected with both
virginal innocence and explicit sexuality. This is shown as she sings about St. Valentine's
day.
-Ophelia (IV.V, pg. 105-6): The girl in the song is a "a maid at your window, / To be
your Valentine", but then the song turns cynical with a man opening the door to "Let in the
maid, that out a maid / Never departed more". This says, with a pun, that the girl was a virgin
when she went in, but not when she came out. Then the girl complains that her valentine
promised to marry her if she went to bed with him, to which he replies with, if ‘thou hadst not
come to my bed.’ Therefore, this allusion to her loss of virginity connects with the fact that
her violets have ‘withered’ (violets symbolise modesty and purity).
● Hamlet feigns madness but then actually becomes mad
Hamlet 'wears alternately the twin theatrical masks of tragedy and comedy, sane prince and
mad fool, from the moment he decided to put on an 'antic disposition' (Marian Cox)
-Hamlet (I.V, pg. 38): Hamlet tells Horatio and Marcellus his plan to ‘put an antic
disposition on’
-Polonius (II.II, pg. 48): Hamlet’s love letter to Ophelia convinces Polonius that it is
Hamlet’s love for Ophelia which has driven him mad: he ‘Fell into a sadness, then into a
fast,/ Thence to a watch, then into a weakness,/ Thence to a lightness, and, by this
declension/ Into the madness wherein now he raves.’
CONTEXT: The theory of the humours: It was believed that the varying composition of four
body fluids- blood, yellow bile, phlegm, and black bile- determined a person’s personality
and behaviours. The logic behind this was that each of the fluids give off vapours that would
ascend to the brain and the body’s temperament was decided upon by this.
-Hamlet (II.II, pg. 51): Polonius then follows up with a clarification, "What is the
matter, my lord?" By "matter," Polonius means the subject matter of what he is reading, but
Hamlet deliberately misinterprets, responding with ‘between who?’. He takes ‘matter’ to
mean something wrong (as we do when we say "What's the matter with you?") and answers
Polonius' question with a question (maieutic/maieutically). As Cox argues, this is a comical
moment for the audience, however it simultaneously shows how Hamlet feigns madness in
the presence of Polonius. And, in the scheme of the plot, this serves a greater purpose- to
prove the guilt of the king without appearing suspicious.
-Hamlet (III.IV, pg.95): Therefore in the closet scene, he says to Gertrude: "I
essentially am not in madness, But mad in craft."
-Gertrude (III.IV, pg. 92): However, Hamlet seems to be in fact mad by the fact that
the ghost is now only visible to himself. Gertrude states: ‘Alas, he’s mad’ and that the ghost
is merely the ‘very coinage of [Hamlet’s] brain.’ At the start of the play, four men witness the
ghost, meaning that it is unlikely that it was a psychological projection of Hamlet’s. Indeed
Mullan claims that a ghost has a peculiar status if it appears to only one person.
