Hamlet's Troubled Mind

            
             " To be, or not to be: that is the question- Probably the most quoted line in the history of dramatic literature, not bad, for a madman. In William Shakespeare's Hamlet, our hero is haunted by the ghost of his kingly father who was viscously and premeditatedly murdered by the King's own shameless wife and coveting brother. Imagine if you will a specter of your dead father appearing before you and divulging a secret so intense it plants the seeds of insanity. Tragedy is defined as a form of drama in which a person of superior intelligence and character, a leader of the community, is overcome by the very obstacles he struggles against. Never has there been a more fitting definition written for one character, never has there been a more sorrowful, pitifully tormented human being than Hamlet. Our hero walks on the cliff's edge of sanity and insanity through out his single-minded task of bittersweet revenge, drifting closer to the edge with every turn of the page. Nothing it seems will veer him from his path of righteousness, not understanding, not reason, not friendship or family, or the mightiest emotion of them all, love. Hamlet is faced with the knowledge that his own mother stole away his beloved father for her own sinful pleasures of the flesh, this thought to say the least, is maddening for our righteous hero. As if the grief felt by a loved one's passing were not enough, this deceitful, hideous act of treasonous lust is thrust upon Hamlet's weary mind, leading his head and heart in a downward spiral to despair and madness. This explains why Hamlet's love for Ophelia, the alluring daughter of Polonius, was buried within his father's casket. How does one forgive a mother for killing the father? How does one love an uncle knowing your father's body rots and decays beneath the dirt, because the brother placed him there? Hamlet's mind must have traveled into the depth's of hate and anguish far beyond a normal man's comprehension.