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The ways in which their madness affects their lives is proven by three actions. These actions are neglecting their responsibilities, negatively influencing others, and finally distracting themselves. It is really never determined whether or not Hamlet and Willy are really mad, but there is some good details that reflect it. Both characters were once respectable, yet now they are neglecting responsibilities that they have. Hamlet, we first learn, is an intelligent student. Now by the end of the play he neglects to do what he is supposed to. The first thing he should have done is avenge his father’s death by killing Claudius. He has many chances in which he could, but doesn’t do it. Is he maybe questioning the the validity of the ghost or is his conscious getting to him. Then he starts losing track of what he should do and when he does do things he doesn’t care whether or not it is right. For example, the killing of Polonius. He killed him without a flinch. Finally when he does realize who he killed, he shows no remorse. Shouldn’t he have? He killed his love’s father. Maybe he doesn’t have a conscious or maybe from the trauma of his father’s death he’s not thinking right anymore. Now, Willy Loman in the beginning of Death of a Salesman is shown to be “not quite there” to the readers. He cannot keep his mind on the present, he is always looking for what he considers to be the good times of the past. When he is driving, he endangers himself by drifting off and daydreaming of the past. He doesn’t even realize that he is jeopardizing his life by not paying attention. Also Willy wants so much more, but he doesn’t even try to make it better. He escapes like a coward from the present which is the easy way out. With once being in control and now losing it along with their priorities, it is safe to determine that there is a bit of madness in them As a result of neglecting their responsibilities, they negatively influence others around them in an indirect way. Hamlet was a nice young man who was in love at one point. Now by letting everything such as mother’s incestuous relationship with Uncle Claudius and his father’s death get to him, he turns against everyone and becomes a loner. In the first scene he is shown, he is apart from the crowd. Also once he worshipped his love Ophelia and now he treats her as if she does not exist. As a result of this bad treatment, Ophelia goes mad. Here’s where all the trouble begins. Because of her madness, she dies by drowning, but whether or not it is suicide is left up to the reader. After her suicide, everything comes tumbling down. This begins the downfall of Hamlet. If he didn’t treat her so badly she would not have died and therefore other deaths would have been avoided. Willy also neglects the ones he loves. He neglects their feelings, thoughts and also physically neglects them. Happy, his son, lacks a relationship with his father. Willy is so taken up by making sure Biff is the best that he neglects to recognize Happy’s existence. With his son Biff, he might not neglect him, but he teaches him the wrong morals. Biff is taught that he should be number one, in sports not academics, no matter what the consequences are. By not studying and not even trying to do something else besides sports or his social life, Biff settles for a not so great life with a not so great job. He’s also not so lucky with the women like he used to be; that seems to be Happy’s main concern. So if Willy didn’t try to make Biff what he wanted him to be and did not ignore Happy in the process, they might have turned out to be better than what they did. By Willy being mad or slightly insane he doesn’t even realize what he is doing to his sons or others around him. He doesn’t know how much he hurt them until it was too late. The madness of Hamlet and Willy Loman finally lead them to their ultimate destiny: the destruction of themselves. By the end of each of the plays, Hamlet and Willy are in fantasy worlds. Here they are not affected by anything that might happen. They simply do not care anymore. Hamlet, in the final scene, finally realizes Claudius is going to die. Here is when it doesn’t matter if he himself lives. As long as his father’s death is avenged, then all is well. It doesn’t even seem that his mother’s death affected him. He became so absorbed in avenging his father’s death that nothing else mattered. His lost many things to his madness. He lost his love Ophelia, his mother, and his life. Hamlet was not the type of person to be mad. He pretended to be mad and by doing that for so long he lost it. He practically convinced himself that he was mad. Instead of trusting the ghost, Hamlet went about finding the truth about Claudius in a round-about way. And by doing that he leads himself to a sure death and takes many innocent bystanders with him. Willy’s death was foreseen early in the play. Obviously the title Death of a Salesman gives it away, one can see by Willy’s actions that he won’t last too long. In the beginning of the play he is already contemplating suicide. Willy is recalling the most important events in his life- his life is passing before his eyes- as he searches to understand what went wrong. Miller has called the play a "confession." What Willy wanted in life was to make a lot of money by being well liked. As he relives past experiences, one sees that he went after what he wanted with energy and ingenuity. But he wanted success so badly that he lost a realistic sense of himself. He forgot that he loved making things with his hands, and he ignored standards of fair play. Willy is like a boy in his impulsive enthusiasm and sudden discouragement. The many contradictions in his character reveal a man who doesn't know himself at all. For instance, he will borrow money from his neighbor Charley but refuses to take a job working for him. He'd rather die than work for a man he sees as inferior. Until the day he dies Willy never stops dreaming up ways to better his life. He is full of imagination, even to the point of committing suicide in a scheme to make $20,000 on his insurance policy. Willy's struggle was long and finally tragic. Linda says, "A small man can be just as exhausted as a great man." Miller writes, "...this man is actually a very brave spirit who cannot settle for half but must pursue his dream of himself to the end.” Willy was so absorbed with being number one, so that’s all that mattered. And when he finally realizes that his son loves him and in a way holds him as number one, then he is content and can be at rest. By examining both Hamlet in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, you see that they are not completely mad but maybe disillusioned. There are times when they can be fine and times when the madness overtakes them. So in determining whether or not they are mad would be a difficult task. Although the causes of their madness differs, the end of both are the same. Bibliography: Word Count: 1352
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