Was Hamlet crazy or just pretending? This is a question that has puzzled writers, directors, and actors for ages. Did Hamlet go mad with the murder of his father, or was he merely putting on an act of madness to confuse the King and out a murderer?
Hamlet tells us that he is choosing to act "strange or odd," and that he plans to act "antic." He uses words like "deception" when speaking to his friend Guildenstern, and voices his strategy to "be idle" to Horatio. In the closet scene with his mother, Gertrude, Hamlet even talks openly about what he believes the court is saying about him, that he his has gone mad. But assures his mother that he is "not in madness."
From the outside looking in, the King refers to Hamlet as mad, but only, it seems, because it serves his purpose. Polonious also calls Hamlet mad, but only in passionate defense of his daughter Ophelia.
So far, it appears that Hamlet's madness is a carefully crafted strategy.
On the other hand, throughout the play, Hamlet does demonstrate such fits of spontaneity that for many seem to support the idea that he either was truly mad, or that he is slowly sinking into madness. For example, he jumps into Ophelia's grave, he has Rosencrantz and Guildenstern killed, he sees his father's ghost in Gertrude's presence, and he kills Polonius and refuses to tell anyone where the body is.
It seems that Hamlet's goal of feigning madness, in the end, goes too far, that his actions are no longer in his control, and that he has become mad.
Unlike his other plays, for example King Lear, where madness is established to be redeemed in the end, in Hamlet, Shakespeare gives us clues in the text to support either option.
What did Shakespeare originally intend? That we may never know for sure. But surely playing a role that begins with feigning madness and dissolves into actual madness is the more interesting choice for the artist and the audience.
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