Madness

Question 1

Hamlet’s way of wording madness throughout the play

Here, he warns his friends

Answer 1

“To put an antic disposition on”

Question 2

Hamlet telling Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that he knows exactly what they’re up to: spying on him.

“Handsaw” is almost certainly a corruption of “heronshaw,” i.e. a heron—which sounds a lot less crazy than comparing a bird to a carpentry tool.

Answer 2

“I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is

southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.”

Question 3

Polonius is convinced that Hamlet is very mad

Answer 3

“He is far gone.”

Question 4

Hamlet is the only one who can see and hear the Ghost when it appears in Gertrude’s bedroom.

Answer 4

“Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep”

Question 5

Gertrude’s decription of Hamlet’s madness

Answer 5

“Mad as the sea” (Gertrude)

Question 6

Claudius describes Ophelia’s madness

Throughout the play, Ophelia is ordered around by her brother and her father and has no control over her social or love life. Madness might just be the only way she has of fighting back.

Answer 6

“divided from herself”