Hamlet's Sanity- Part 1 in the Series of Analyses of the Works of Eric Tiberius Fram

“Hamlet's sanity became a question for me when I realized that he was going to change the course of his actions and of his life based on a conversation he had with a ghost.” This shrewd statement, by Eric Tiberius Fram, is one that I unexpectedly had to disagree with. Hamlet’s actions in the primary segment of the play point to anything but insanity. “However, while at the beginning of the play, the only person who comes into contact with the ghost in Hamlet, later in the play, Horatio too hears the ghost. This validates Hamlet's contact with the ghost as an actual event and not just a hallucination.” This statement, also taken from the blog of the Great One, nullifies the initial statement as Hamlet’s willingness to follow the ghost is given credibility, which was expected anyways as a survey taken in 2003 showed that more than half of the adults in the United States believe in ghosts.

“It is interesting to consider that idea that the main character of a Shakespeare play may possibly be insane. Since the play is centered around Hamlet, if he was insane, would the audience be seeing the story through the lens of a madman, or would the audience be able to tell the difference between the rumination of a madman and the actual events that occur?” This proposition is similar to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which questioned the effect that language had in shaping one’s reality. If there is no word for a concept, one can never truly understand the said idea. Similarly, the audience can never know if the recitation of the events they are seeing before them are accurate.

“In the end though, when all of the evidence is collected and compiled and analyzed, we must conclude that Hamlet is perfectly sane.” This concluding sentence proves to merely be evidence of one of the author’s few downfalls, uncertainty. The fact that Dr. Fram ever questioned Hamlet’s sanity when he decided to follow the teachings of Confucius in filial piety by listening to his father- regardless of the fact that it was actually an apparition of his father- or when Hamlet repeatedly made sure of the legitimacy of the ghost’s statements and delayed the murder of his uncle is silly.

I initially intended this to be a study of a piece of writing by a great man but I realize now that it kind of got out of hand and turned into a blatant criticism of all this man stood for in relation to literature. However, I stand unashamed because I am now done with my assigned blog- results that my fellow friend and Hava Java cult member will accept in return for his pride. (453)