Hamlets Madness Essays (2601 words) - Characters In Hamlet

Hamlets Madness Hamlet's Madness The issue of madness is one of major importance in this play. Is Hamlet truly mad, meaning insane? Or is he merely angry? Does he feign madness and use it as a guise? Or does he place himself so dangerously close to the line between sanity and insanity that he crosses it without even realizing it? Or is he so intelligent, cunning and in control that this is merely the playing out of his completely conceived and well-executed plan of attack? The patient is a thirty year-old male. He is Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, an introspective, grieving young member of the royalty, plagued by the recent death of his father, and the hasty marriage of his mother to his uncle, Claudius. He is capable of depressing anyone around him; the King and Queen attempt to pry Hamlet from his mourning. As relations become more strained between Hamlet and Claudius, his attitude becomes destitute. He begins to withdraw himself from everyone in the castle, and spends most of his time in solitude; he is often seen wa lking alone, talking to himself. Upon deeper investigation, it is discovered that Hamlet is seeing the ghost of the ex-King of Denmark, Hamlets father. The ghost becomes Hamlets counselor, guiding him through his everyday maze of depression and confusion. It is through the ghost of his father that he learns that Claudius, the new King of Denmark, is solely responsible for his fathers foul and most unnatural murder (I.v.26). He claims that he is told to seek revenge on his fathers murder by murdering Claudius. Hamlet sees the ghost at various times over the course of the play, appearing when he is in need of help. Hamlets condition persists, gradually getting worse, as he becomes increasingly more aggressive and violent. His behavior towards Ophelia, the woman he loves, becomes erratic. He has violent outbursts towards his mother. He kills various members of the castle without explanation. Hamlet is clearly out of control, and is in need of a psychological evaluation. The most major of mental illnesses is schizophrenia, a psychotic illness, where the patient is out of touch with reality. In this disease, thoughts may be deranged or delusions without basis may arise. The individual tends to withdraw from their already little social contact. They become unresponsive and lose interest in normal activities. Emotionally, they can be irritable, angry, aggressive, and even violent at times. At other times, they can have an obsession with death, or voices can be heard or visions seen. The reasons for this change often appear unexplainable to relatives and friends. Some try to explain this new behavior as due to stresses, past or present, especially from interpersonal difficulties and mishaps. It is generally a devastating illness, troublesome to the patient and painful to the relatives and sometimes offensive to society. (Chong, 1) William Shakespeares literary opus Hamlet is an adventure story of the highest quality, a tale of the psychological trials of a man who is isolated from the society he must live in, and a portrait of a family driven to bloody and gruesome murder by one mans lust for power (King, 1). In his essay Hamlet: A Riddle in Greatness, Louis Kronenberger states that even on the surface, Hamlet remains among the greatest of unsolved psychological mysteries, and the one that has been provided with the most solutions (1). The theme of madness in Hamlet has been one of great discussion; there is much conflicting evidence that can be found when trying to prove the validity of the claim to Hamlets true madness. The patient, Hamlet, prince of Denmark, has been diagnosed with schizophrenia due to his erratic, sometimes irrational behavior. Ever since the death of his father, King Hamlet, young Hamlet has been what appeared to be in a state of madness. This case study on Hamlets condition will cite many instances in William Shakespeares Hamlet in which the patient has acted in a schizophrenic, meaning mad, manner. Hamlets madness is the result of his fragile, overanalytical personality being confronted with a great deal of anguish. Hamlets madness is apparent even before he sees the ghost of his father. At the start of the play,

The Columbine Massacre essays

The Columbine Massacre essays The Columbine high school massacre took place in April 20, 1999 at Columbine High School in Jefferson County near Littleton, Colorado, United States, when two teenage students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, executed a planned attacked, killing 12 other students and a teacher before killing themselves (Wikipedia, 2004). It is believed to be the worst school After the shootings, the media painted a picture of the murderers as outcast "nerds" who were unpopular and teased by much of the school's population (Wikipedia, 2004). However, later reports revealed that both Harris and Klebold had both a close circle of friends and a wider informal social group. It was also revealed that anti-gay epithets were directed at them, although their actual sexual orientation was unknown; both had girlfriends at some point, though. Harris and Klebold were members of a clique called the "Trenchcoat Mafia" in which they wore heavy black trench coats. By the time of the shootings, most of the major members of the group had already either graduated or dropped out of Columbine. Since the murders, there have been a variety of theories attempting to explain why Harris and Klebold committed the crime (Cullen, 2004). A popular theory is that the boys, who were known as the "Trench Coat Mafia outcasts" took revenge against the bullies who had made school miserable for them. A second conclusion is that the massacre was inexplicable: It is impossible to understand what drove them to such horrific violence. However, recently, the FBI and its team of psychiatrists and psychologists came to an entirely different conclusion (Cullen, 2004). These experts say that they understand what motivated Harris and Klebold to execute such a crime, and their explanation is different and more troubling than the two conclusions that were previously most widely believed. Three months after the crime took place, the FBI held a meeting ...

Key concepts of calculus Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Key concepts of calculus - Essay Example It is basically the instaneous rate of change of f(x) with respect to x. Graphically, this is analogous to the formula for gradient that we studied in earlier classes that is . This is basically the gradient of the tangent line to the curve traced by the function. 5. An absolute maximum value is one which is greater than all other values of f(x) for all values of x. This means there is an absolute maximum at if for all values of x. A local maximum is one which is greatest value of f(x) within a given range of x. This means 6. is basically a summation of products of countless small rectangles which form a shape on a graph. Here, is analogous to the area of a rectangle where. The only difference is that as f(x) is traced along the graph, its height changes. The number n represents the total number of rectangles made and since it approaches infinity, it means that there width grows shorter and shorter and the whole sum effectively gives the area under the curve with minimum shoot over. The main difference between definite and indefinite integral in this context is that the former has a defined domain for which this area is being calculated while the latter has domain equivalent to all real numbers. Definite integral represents area bounded by x axis, the curve and the two vertical lines at limits of domain. Indefinite integral may or may not be bounded from right or left and also, the height of curve is also unknown. So the height of rectangles is also unknown. 7. For the definite integral, bounded below by and above by , of a function, the derivative is the value of function at and the limit is the proof of its continuity. This is true regardless of the value of