Throughout the play Hamlet shows intelligence through the way he acts with other people and the way he acts with himself. However some of his intelligent acts come across as deranged, but Hamlet does this in a way to distract other characters well he plans his mischievous revenge. One character sees him as crazed over an unreachable love, and the mother sees him as troubled by the death of his father. Hamlet is able to use their inaccurate beliefs to his advantage as he goes undetected.
In his first act of "insane" behavior, we see Hamlet approach Ophelia with no shirt and is talking incoherently, but this act, as like every act Hamlet does throughout the play, was premeditated. He knew that Ophelia would talk to her father, Polonius, and he knew that he could use this encounter to his advantage. Polonius afterwards believe that Hamlet was driven crazy over his love for Ophelia. This is in the only instance where Hamlet has an encounter with Ophelia. At one point in the play Polonius and Claudius have staged a meeting between Ophelia and Hamlet to observe the way Hamlet act with Ophelia. Again the audience sees Hamlet treat Ophelia harshly and he uses his encounter with her to allude to the wrong doings his mom is also done to his father. He states that, 'women drive men crazy' and that they are deceitful in manner. This engagement between Ophelia has a greater meaning that Hamlet fully realizes at that moment. Since Claudius also witnessed this engagement with Ophelia, he decides the Hamlet might need to be taken away because he starting to pose a "danger" to those around him.
It's not only with Ophelia that we see Hamlet use these premeditated acts to sustain others believes that he is insane. He has an encounter with Lord Polonius where he calls him a fishmonger. This strengthened Lord Polonius's beliefs that Hamlet is crazy. Polonius is the one who believe that Hamlet is just so in love with Ophelia, that he doesn't know what to do with himself. Claudius is the one who believes that Hamlet is just out of his mind with grief over the death of his father. He sees this to be the way that Hamlet talks and behaves with his mother. It is, however, through the play that Hamlet puts on that Claudius realizes the danger that hamlet poses to his rein. This was Hamlet's plan all along, to let Claudia know that he knows that Claudius murdered his father. Claudius's reaction to the play was exactly how Hamlet wanted and how Hamlet predicted it might be. Claudius even goes on to pray to God that he will be absorbed of his sin.
Throughout the play Hamlet shows a different level of intelligence compared all the other characters. He is able to plan his revenge without being detected. Yet towards the end we see him not lose control mentally but lose control emotionally. All the rage that builds up inside him that he's been harboring throughout this whole time was finally released after he killed Polonius and verbally attacks his mother. However is not evidence of a mental breakdown, it's evidence that Hamlet is human and he's angry and upset everything that's been going on around him. He's shown his anger through soliloquies but he did a good job of bottling it inside yourself until that instant with Polonius and his mother. Ghost of his father even has to come back and say 'keep your eye on the prize and remind your mother that you love her because you need her on your side.'
Although Hamlet has instances in the play where he puts on this appearance of mental defect, he's actually an intelligent and calculating character. He's able to secretly plan his revenge on the king and queen very covertly to where nobody has any insight into what he's actually doing, even with the tails and spies that Claudius and Polonius have put in to watch him and find out what he's doing. However he is not the insane person that everyone makes it out to be. He is crafty and he is mischievous enough to be able to successfully execute his revenge without detection.
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