What's wrong with Hamlet? - Summary

Dr Erin Sullivan discusses the principal theme in “Hamlet“: the human being and his existential suffering. Shakespeare conveys this Renaissance concept with the madness of Hamlet: Hamlet holding a skull is the most famous scene that expresses the protagonist's dialogue in order to understand the human mind and his existence.

But the question still remains in modern times, from the Renaissance: what's wrong with Hamlet?

Hamlet appears in the first act,scene II: he returns home to attend the funeral of his father. Hamlet started to behave angrily with the rest of the characters and his uncle, who married Hamlet's mother (queen of Denmark) and is getting too close to him. Gertrude, Hamlet's mother, tries to convince him that he's behaving strangely because of the grief of his father.

Hamlet's pain is the core of Renaissance period: it was considered harmful for mental and physical condition. This idea of abnormal, something out of normal, contains a sort of perversion that leads the reader to think “what is wrong with Hamlet“.