Depression, melancholy, disillusionment, and disconnectedness are the burning emotions churning in young Hamlet's soul as he attempts to come to terms with his father's death and his mother's incestuous, illicit marriage. While Hamlet tries to pick up the pieces of his shattered idealism, he consciously embarks on a quest to seek the truth hidden in Elsinore; this mission of Hamlet's is in stark contrast to Claudius' fervent effort to obscure the truth of King Hamlet's murder. The question of Hamlet's sanity is irrelevant, but instead his melancholy disposition is the centering aspect of the play The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Hamlet's melancholy is prevalent in his unique diction, his conversations with both comrades and enemies, and especially in his soliloquies. Those aspects of the play allow a glimpse into Hamlet's state of questioning of deception versus truth and illusion versus reality. The constant struggle between the real and the imagined, along with the circumstances of Hamlet's arrival home, and the tension between the Danish royalty, give rise to extreme melancholy in Hamlet's personality, and thereby turn him into a stereotypical malcontent.
Hamlet's fear, separation, and mistrust form him into a typical malcontent character. In defining the malcontent from the Shakespearean era, Christine Gomez writes that "The malcontent mood in late Elizabethan and Jacobean drama may be traced to the political, economic, social and intellectual conditions of the age."1 Politically, Hamlet feels left down and put aside for the crown. Claudius assures himself the crown by murdering the King while Hamlet is away at Wittenberg. Not only is Hamlet offended that he is not King, but he questions his worth since he did nothing, even though he was away, to stop Claudius and take the throne for himself. Hamlet "[.] is a disappointed candidate for election, still clinging to a delusion of adequacy.
