As “insanity” was undoubtedly a striking characteristic of the personality which drove Hamlet’s actions in the play, the causes of “insanity” must be analyzed in order to fully understand Hamlet’s character. In fact, Hamlet may have been feigning insanity, using madness as a mask to protect him from Claudius’s fury at him. Behind the mask, is hidden the secret of King Hamlet’s death, and Hamlet’s promise to the ghost to avenge his father’s death. By pretending to be insane, Hamlet escapes King Claudius being furious with him, while i

Hamlet’s insanity mask is constantly backfiring against him. Though he originally created the mask to make Claudius believe he is insane, his scheme backfires when everyone except Claudius falls for it. Hamlet’s choice to appear mad is his tragic downfall; not only does it devastate his own personality, but it destroys his relationships with Gertrude and Ophelia. Because he began to believe in his own mind that he was mad, he was forced to witness the downfall of himself, and of all those he loved. With his actions of insanity, Hamlet essentially pushed Ophelia into suicide. Because she is one of those who believes Hamlet lost his mind, when he does not return her love, she is so incredibly brokenhearted that she kills herself. By relying on emotion instead of logic, Hamlet kills Polonius instead of Claudius.

All of these emotions of Hamlet’s affect his decisions regarding actions that must be taken. For Hamlet, the question of whether to and how to act is affected by rational considerations, and emotional, ethical, and psychological factors. Because Hamlet seems to distrust the idea that it is even possible to act in a rational, controlled way, he chooses to act impulsively, blindly, and recklessly. The other characters are not as concerned with actions as Hamlet is.

Hamlet also contemplates his own death many times in the play, as he repeatedly considers whether or not suicide is a morally legitimate action to end the sufferings that he endures. Hamlet believes that his misery is enough to kill himself, but he fears that if he commits suicide, he will be sent to hell because the Christian religion prohibits suicide. In the “to be or not to be” soliloquy, Hamlet concludes that nobody would choose to endure the pains of life if they were not afraid of what would happen to them after death, and it is this precise fear that causes complex moral considerations to interfere the decision to take action.

Another characteristic of Hamlet in this play is his delay in killing Claudius. Though he had no reason not to kill Claudius, as he hated Polonius, he nevertheless procrastinates on this task. One reason why Hamlet may have delayed on killing his uncle was his fear of intimacy with his mother, as he kne

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