Hamlet - Essential #7

1. Do you think that Hamlet has created his own insanity, or has he lost his sense of reality completely?

• Although Hamlet may appear to be insane because of his seemingly irrational responses to others, the incisiveness of his responses shows that he is far more clear-headed than any character in this play could imagine. It is clear that he has control over his insanity because even himself has declared, "I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk form a handsaw" (II.ii.402-403). This means that he is only mad at certain times - he can distinguish between things that do not resemble each other. Therefore, Hamlet's madness is just a disguise he puts on in order to distract people, especially his enemies, from his anguish and despair of losing his father and being betrayed by his friends, his lover, and his family.
• However, from another perspective, Hamlet's insanity is a display of his intense and conflicting state of mind to the utmost. The high tensity of his mind will, in the end, tip the prince over the edge of breakdown, thus leads him into real madness which could be irreversible.
  

The Pardoner's Tale - Essential #6

1. What parallels can be drawn between the Pardoner's Prologue and his tale? How is this tale different from the other two that we have studied?

• In his tale, he talked about how gluttony and drunkenness are "enemies of the cross of Christ" (246); however, in his own life, the pardoner lusts for excessive "money, wool and cheese and wheat" (244). It is also ironic that when he has finished his condemnation of swearing, he began swear himself.
  
• Different from the Knight's tale and the Miller's tale, which the storytellers' identities and beliefs can be found in their own tales, the Pardoner's tale is actually a contrast of the pardoner's identity and his way of life. All the sins the pardoner strongly opposed in his sermon - gluttony, drunkenness, gambling, and swearing - were faults that he had either proudly claimed to possess in the prologue or showed through his actions on the pilgrimage.
  
• Off the Topic: Although many people may see the pardoner as a bad person; in my opinion, the pardoner is actually an honest man, rather than a hypocrite. In the Middle Ages, the church became extremely corrupted. Therefore, it was very common for a clergy to preach one way and acts another. The pardoner was just one of the many hypocrites who use religion as a profane tool to earn money or to get other benefits: "Believe me, many a sermon or devotive exordium issues from an evil motive. Some to give pleasure by their flattery and gain promotion through hypocrisy, some out of vanity, some out of hate" (243). When everyone is doing the wrong thing, no one would judge you for doing the same thing. Therefore, the pardoner, in the eyes of the people living in the Middle Ages, did not go against the moral code for clergies - because there are no moral code for them to follow at that time. The pilgrims embraced this hypocritical pardoner because he, at least, admitted his flaws and was being very honest about himself when he was not preaching.