Hamlet: Madness in Debate In William Shakespeare's Hamlet, there is plenty of evidence to indicate that Hamlet deliberately feigns bouts of madness in order to confuse and dismay the king and his court. Hamlet promised to behave “strangely and strangely,” but his actions throughout the play lead the reader to assume that the protagonist of this play has indeed gone mad; because of Hamlet's convincing depiction of madness. Nonetheless, Hamlet displays the ability to think rationally, contemplate, and plan, unlike a mad individual. His erratic behavior towards Ophelia, the murder of Polonius, and the death of his father followed by his clairvoyance are scenes in the play, in which Hamlet devises a plan to behave madly; but his madness is actually brilliant. Hamlet is a revenge tragedy focusing on Hamlet's desire to avenge his father's death. It is important to understand why and at what point Hamlet decides to feign madness. Hamlet gets the idea from Horatio after death, and Ophelia's life-and-death encounter with her father can be seen as the true tragedy of this play. Ophelia is made truly mad by her reversal of fortune and her realization of Hamlet's madness; it is then that he realizes that he is helpless without the men in his life. He has a conversation with Laertes in which they explicitly talk about his chastity and losing his virginity. A fragile woman, Hamlet sees her obedience and incorporates her into his revenge plan by pursuing her as a love interest. He uses her in this plot to maintain the charade of madness, because Ophelia herself is by far not mentally stable. After Ophelia chooses to remain faithful to her father over Hamlet, enraging him; rejecting it due to shifted loyalties. This doesn't seem like the act of a madman, but rather a man with a game plan in mind; every move of the pawn is crucial in its quest