​English NOW
Mental is oftentimes too taboo and is rarely mentioned in the society and therefore a stigma is thus created. When dealing with mental health, people often associate it with the negatives and stereotypes regarding it established through media and public attitudes towards mental health. The Tragedy of Hamlet includes many of its cast showing symptoms of a possible mental health disorder but portrays it as erratic behaviour.
The play’s titular character, Hamlet, is not exempt from this fact. Hamlet shows symptoms of borderline personality disorder such as unstable relationships, impulsive behaviour, extreme mood swings, explosive anger and out of touch with reality. Hamlet has hallucinations and delusions during his times of peril and is obsessed with the of revenge when it comes to Claudius, making it his goal to kill his uncle. He also cannot maintain relationships with either his mother, Gertrude, or his former lover, Ophelia. Hamlet would often times physically and verbally abuse Ophelia, assaulting her because she claimed that she was unable to love him and spews out slurs while he was beating her.
Ophelia, the main love interest of Hamlet, starts off in the novel as an innocent young girl but as the novel progresses, the reader can see her slow descent towards madness. She displays symptoms of depression and even PTSD as she has tendency to sing songs relating to events which she herself experienced. These songs would be about death, chaos and unrequited love. Ultimately, she commits suicide by jumping into water.
Claudius, the main antagonist of Hamlet, can be diagnosed as a sociopath. Sociopaths seek to dominate others and win at any cost. They are the masters of deception and influencing others, though unlike psychopaths, they are able to feel remorse. Claudius is a power hungry individual and because of his greed, he decides to kills his own brother in order to claim the throne. He was able to manipulate an entire kingdom and even the wife of the man that he killed and the only one who did not fall for his charade was Hamlet. He was able to feel guilt but not for the reason that one should expect, he only felt guilty due to his inability to feel remorse for the killing of this brother. He felt guilty for the fact that he was able to live with himself even though he stained his hands with his brother’s blood.