s well as maintain sensible and logical thoughts. This idea is depicted through his conversations with his good friend Horatio who is assisting Hamlet in his search for the truth behind Old Hamlet’s death. For example, before the performance of the play Hamlet explains to Horatio, “There is a play tonight before the Williams 3 king: / One scene of it comes near the circumstance / Which I have told thee of my father’s death. / I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot, / Even with the very comment of thy soul / Observe my uncle. If his occulted guilt / Do not itself unkennel in one speech, / It is a damned ghost that we have seen” (3.2.75-82). Hamlet has devised a plan to determine his uncle’s guilt and is outlining it to Horatio and asking for some assistance with complete sanity. Hamlet’s thought process remains sane and logical through the entire play as he examines his life in his soliloquies. In these soliloquies Hamlet ponders the question of suicide and what the ramifications of it are: To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing end them. To die-to sleep, No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to: ‘tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep; To sleep, perchance to dream-ay, there’s the rub: For in that sleep of death what dreams may come. (3.1.56-66) In other soliloquies Hamlet explores the faults of passion and how emotions can be faked as well as his own character flaws such as his inability to take action. A third portrayal of the prince’s sanity occurs during Hamlet’s conversation with his mother after the spirit of Old Hamlet came but revealed itself only to Hamlet. Hamlet talks to his mother in a clear, truthful and rational manner ...
