I believe, after reading the first three acts of William Shakespeare’s "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark" that one of the most intriguing aspects of this story is Hamlet’s insanity. One of the great story lines of the play is how Hamlet plays insane so to determine the guilt of his uncle, but I believe that Hamlet actually does go crazy.

At the very beginning of the play, he is plagued by the death of his father, his uncle’s marriage to his mother, and his being denied the throne. A case at this point could be made by most modern lawyers that Hamlet is, if not technically insane, at least greatly emotionally troubled. We would not expect most people in this condition to be able to think rationally to make decisions that would alter the course of nations. However we do not have the benefit of a modern lawyer and an live televised court case to determine Hamlet’s mental state. We must assume that he is generally stable based on the manner in which the other characters in the play interact with him. His friends (at least at this point in the play) Horatio and Marcellus decide to confide in Hamlet their seeing of the ghost and ask him what to make of it. "Let us impart what we have seen tonight unto young Hamlet." Clearly the are not questioning Hamlet’s judgment at this point in the play.

Later on, Hamlet begins to play mad and determining whether or not Shakespeare meant for him to be crazy or not is more difficult to understand. (I personally believe that Shakespeare meant for the audience to determine this for him or herself.) Throughout Act II Hamlet merely plays mad while the forces which drive him towards that end mount. However in all of his actions there can be found logic and calculation. For example, he ponders suicide, not like a crazy man without understanding of mortality, but with true concern for the benefits which may or may not come with death. "Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death?"

In Act III the strain of living with so many false friends, being ruled by his murderous uncle, trying to love his mother who’s morals he now questions, using a woman he once loved, and trying to calculate at every moment what each character is doing and for whom they are working has driven Hamlet over the edge. He goes truly mad. In Scene Four when Hamlet is in his mother’s quarters presumably alone with her, trying desperately to discover that she is still the pure woman he once thought her to be, he strikes out at the noise behind the curtain. It is Polonius of course, who is killed. Hamlet, however, asks first, "Is it the king?" If Hamlet had been calculating his moves he would have waited for a moment when it would not be clear who killed the king. By killing the king in the castle (or trying to) Hamlet jeopardizes his chances of becoming king himself. Even by killing Polonious he is hurting his own cause as he is shipped away to England. Further evidence of Hamlet’s madness in Act III is that following his killing of Polonious he turns back to his mother and without so many as eight words spoken off the subject returns to his previous conversation. Our modern lawyer would tell us that the sane man would be more affected by having just killed one of his childhood friends than Hamlet.

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