Hamlet

Hamlet

Hamlet was not insane at all; he was only pretending to be. My definition of insanity is when you don’t know what you are talking about, you can’t understand what is going on, you do something outrageous for no particular reason, or you do strange things constantly without even noticing it. Hamlet said that he himself was only mad sometimes. He tought things through before acting on them. Whatever Hamlet did he did it for a reason.

Hamlet said that he himself is only, "mad north-north-west." (Act II, Scene 2, Line 401) He meant he was only mad at certain times. You cannot be insane only at certain times. You are either insane or you are not insane. He knew his so called friends, Guildenstern and Rosencrantz, were spying on him for Claudius. He was pretending to be insane so that he could later kill Claudius