ch. How better to convince those watching that you are mad if you speak of mad things even when you are alone (or are supposed to think you are alone)? Does Hamlet want to die? Not exactly. He says to Polonius (which should have been the first clue that his 'to be or not to be' soliloquy was a setup);You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that Iwill more willingly part withal.-- except my life,except my life, except my life. (II ii 217-19)He is duplicitous when he contemplates suicide, though is startlingly honest when he ponders the afterlife and the immortal soul. It is often difficult to know when Hamlet speaks the truth, or exactly whom he is manipulating at any given moment. It cannot simply be assumed that his moments 'alone' are the most honest, for Hamlet seeks to fool all audiences. His occasional falling out of character from time to time, in and out of his affected madness, can be attributed to his emotional stake in the games he plays. Even the most intelligent of people are often cracked by stress, and Hamlet is no exception, giving credibility to his sanity.One of the most impressive features of Hamlet's prolixity is his gift for paradox and ability to bait his fellows with a single statement. Often his counterpart is too blind to recognize that Hamlet is playing them (with the exceptional times that Claudius notices), exploiting them, or even accusing them of their own crimes. In a conversation with Polonius, he calls him a pimp, a "fishmonger" (II ii 174) asks "have you a daughter?" (II ii 182) when he well knows (and knows in the Biblical sense) that Polonius' daughter is Ophelia. This confuses Polonius, who believes Hamlet to be out of his senses. What Hamlet has done is mix up a few words and accused Polonius of being Ophelia's pimp. Hamlet says that Ophelia is not Polonius' daughter, or at least one he should claim, because she is a whore. Since Hamlet has tainted her and now refuses her, she is worthless to any ma...
