Insanity—real or obfuscated—is integral to the fiber of many of Shakespearean plays. Apart from reflecting the political turmoil, madness adds to the atmosphere of pathos, misfortune and selfdestruction of the protagonists in his plays. A pathological condition, widely prevalent in the Elizabethan times, lunacy manifested itself in multifarious forms—paranoia, hallucinations, delusions, suspicion, secrecy, confinement and isolation in the society. The Bard faithfully reproduces this symptomatic malady in his tragedies and comedies. Consequently, falsity, pretentiousness or role-playing for a motive emerges as vital an element as the real madness augmented by reckless ambition, senseless jealousy, filial ingratitude, desertion and trickery. Shakespeare, the master craftsman, uses it deftly to recreate and underscore the political and social ramifications of the irregularities and abnormalities of human mind which conversely reflect a parallel world of insanity in the outer world marred by distrust, deceit and deception. This paper is an attempt to explore the mechanics of madness, whether real or feigned, in three of Shakespeare’s famous tragedies—Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear. |
