Literature Review

Gao Huilian noted that from the dialogue between Hamlet and the main characters in the play and several major actions demonstrated, we can conclude that Hamlet was sober. Firstly, after the dialogue with the ghost of king, Hamlet didn't lose rationality. He asked his friends to keep a secret after the shortest time he restored calmed. Then, he told his friend he would pretend mad in order to revenge. Secondly, he abandoned Ophelia whom he loved deeply. It is hard for him to make this decision. However, it was a correct and helpful way for his revenge. Thirdly, Hamlet keenly knew the purpose was not pure when Rosencrantz and Guildensten visited him. He talked with them used mad and aggressive words to get a real purpose: it was the king and queen let them to test Hamlet. Forth, Hamlet had a chance to kill his uncle Claudius who had not attendants. However he gave up, thought that it is wrong time to kill Claudius when he was praying for atonement. If killed Claudius, he would go to heaven and did not get the deserved punishments. Last, When he was talking to his mother, he killed Polonius who were Claudius's accomplice behind the veil. ( 42 )

Chen Weiyan noted that Hamlet had heard the truth about the murder came from a ghost, he had to pretend mad to dig the truth. It was not real mad but a camouflage. On the one hand, Chen thought the Prince Hamlet has reasonable factors to mad, because he needed to find a way to express his inner resentment and escape everything nauseous around him. Revealing some information to his enemy also demonstrated that he was real mad and stupid different from common people. Compared to the directly revenge of Laertes, he had a harder battle to fight with his inner world: his inner world had collapsed and he could not rebuild. And why he left his lover to pretend madness? Some researchers thought it was a part of his plan of revenge. Leaving the lover created an illusion that the madness is because of love, which in order to cover the real reason.( 113 )

Zhang Yu noted that the love, kinship, friendship betrayed Hamlet, those realities let Hamlet breathless, he could only talk to himself by soliloquy and crazy form to reveal his inner voice. So we could read Hamlet's monologue in the book which was an insane expression of Hamlet's dissatisfaction and resentment. It's just a form of madness which expressed one's inner discontent. It's not a real physical madness.（99）

Freud described such patients who were mad as same as Hamlet: ”under the factors of positive and negative, the rationality faced challenges. Even somethings which seemed reasonable also were full of doubts. In these circumstances, those patients were full of energy, judgment and intelligent than others, but hesitated and lost them energy so that reduce them freedom,.” It is such a pathology decided that why Hamlet was confused, hesitant and delirious.(Yu Li 229)