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Is Hamlet mad? How does Shakespeare make his audience think about this question and why? Throughout the play, Shakespeare shows Hamlet in wildly fluctuating moods, displaying extreme types of behaviour. His mood is angry, suicidal or depressed in some scenes and sometimes he appears to be either mad or putting on an 'antic disposition', but it is hard to tell which. He reacts very differently to each of the other characters in the play, and some of his behaviour can be interpreted as deliberate and calculated, and some as bizarrely eccentric. Before Hamlet sees his father's ghost and appears to go mad, his state of mind is shown by his first soliloquy, in Act 1 Scene 2. He begins his speech with 'O, that this too too solid flesh would melt! Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd his canon 'gainst self slaughter!' He is feeling very depressed and suicidal because of...

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