Marty+Boughton

=It literally doesn't get funnier than this.= media type="custom" key="13518518" = =

= = = **__Blog # 4: Hamlet Was Clearly Javelin Champion in High School.__** = media type="youtube" key="DWjn2oSVBm8" height="315" width="560" Look at that aim! And a moving target, too!! I bet he won a medal for that kind of precision. But, seriously, it's bedlam up in Denmark. Within a few minutes, Claudius (accidentally) poisons Gertrude, Laertes (purposefully) stabs Hamlet with a poison sword, Hamlet stabs Laertes back with the poison sword (this is intentional, but he also doesn't realize he is committing murder, too), then Hamlet stabs Claudius (definitely on purpose and no longer ignorant to the homicidal factor), then makes Claudius drink poison (just to be sure), they all drop dead, Fortinbras sidles in to realize Denmark's royalty killed each other, then takes over. The end!! (I just realized that was an exceptionally long sentence. Not the "The end!" sentence, the one before that). It doesn't even really matter if people are certifiably crazy, now. They all kill each other, anyway. But I know I'm not going to get off the hook that easily. Time to look at the text!

So Hamlet's mother just died and Laertes informed Hamlet what went down and why, so Hamlet charges Claudius: **HAMLET** > The point!--envenom'd too! > Then, venom, to thy work. > //Stabs KING CLAUDIUS// **All** > Treason! treason! **KING CLAUDIUS** > O, yet defend me, friends; I am but hurt. **HAMLET** > Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane, > Drink off this potion. Is thy union here? > Follow my mother. > //KING CLAUDIUS dies// I'm not going to lie, this seems like a pretty sane reaction. What if you just found out your jerk of an uncle had just worked out a situation to kill you and had already successfully murdered your mother? Kill him too, of course! That's what I would've done. Is that totally wrong to say? Oh well. Fortinbras really had excellent timing, though. There's no way any other ruler could've gotten to such a scene of wreckage before him, and then he was able to finally claim Denmark for his own. What an ending.

= **__Blog # 3: Okay, I Give. Hamlet Is Nuts.__** = Feb 12, 2012

I was fending for Hamlet's sanity before, but I'm pretty sure that's now impossible after viewing the Kenneth Branagh version where he gets wild during "The Mouse Trap" (is it strange that I view the Kenneth Branagh version as the definitive model of the play?). He is raving. If I were in the crowd, I definitely would've felt awkward watching him running around yelling like a lunatic. It's clear that Hamlet has some deep-seeded issues plaguing him. The "To Be, Or Not To Be" soliloquy makes that fairly evident. Should I live? Kill myself? And it's lovely how he gets to brandishing his knife at his reflection (in the Kenneth Branagh version, of course). Despite his descent into madness, he does have exceptionally eloquent moments. I adore the lines:
 * To die: to sleep; **


 * " No more; and by a sleep to say we **
 * end ** ** 60 **


 * The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks **


 * That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation **


 * Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; **


 * To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; **


 * For in that sleep of death what dreams may **
 * come " **

Heavens above! That's beautiful! I don't think I've ever heard something that made death sound so gentle and lovely. That death is to fall asleep and leave the heart-ache of consciousness behind. That to be dead means to dream dreams...though we don't know what kind of dreams they are. Shakespeare killed (punny!) that soliloquy. No wonder it's so famous.

If you ask me, Hamlet is troubled and growing more and more delusional, driven to desperate terms by his grief. I don't think we've yet seen a complete mental breakdown, though. It should be coming soon...

= **__Blog #2: Heeere, Little Ghostie!__** = Feb 5, 2012

In Act 1, Scenes 4 and 5, Hamlet is not only seeing the ghost of his father, but following and conversing with it. Definitely sounds cuckoo, and yet Marcellus and Horatio are seeing the same thing: //** "HAMLET **// // It will not speak; then I will follow it. // //** HORATIO **// // Do not, my lord. // //** HAMLET **// // Why, what should be the fear? // // It waves me forth again: I'll follow it. // //** HORATIO **// // What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, // // Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff // // Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason // // And draw you into madness? think of it: // //** HAMLET **// // It waves me still. // //** MARCELLUS **// // You shall not go, my lord. // //** HAMLET **// // Hold off your hands. // //** HORATIO **// // Be ruled; you shall not go." //

Ironic that Horatio mentions madness, eh? Who knows whether, one of them, all of them, or none of them are crazy. The fact that this isn't happening entirely inside Hamlet's head adds depth to the plot because it puts his sanity in question. If more than one person witnesses something supernatural, does that make it real? Does that mean Bigfoot is real, too?

As far as I can tell, Hamlet isn't schizo; he's just a troubled and suicidal Shakespearian emo.

= **__Blog #1: Hamlet Is Having a Rough Adolescence...__** = Marty Boughton, period 3

Not only did his father just pass away, but his mother married his uncle, his girlfriend's family doesn't like him, and (according to the Ethan Hawke version) he's got an unfortunate passion for ill-fitting hats and yellow sunglasses.



The issue of sanity, and a lack thereof play a big role in the play Hamlet. Hamlet is seeing his father's ghost all over the place. The king's spirit informs Hamlet that Claudius, the king's brother and Hamlet's uncle, murdered him and the king encourages Hamlet to take revenge. The knee-jerk reaction to the pronouncement that Hamlet's dad is telling him to get back at his uncle is to diagnose Hamlet as crazy. However, in the first scene of the play, some guards encounter the ghost as well.

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If several people are seeing the same mad thing, do you trust it to be legitimate? I would say yes. If Hamlet had been the only one seeing his father the entire time, then I would view him as a volatile young man with severe mental illness. However, his sanity is slightly more defendable with the acknowledgement of the guards' sighting of the king.

But there are a few things pertaining to Hamlet that are irrefutably deranged:

1. Hamlet's relationship with his mother in the Mel Gibson version. Not mother should kiss her son the way she did.

2. Ophelia's madness and what was probably suicide after her father's death.

3. The fact that EVERYONE DIES.