Was Hamlet mad?

I agree with you on Hamlet not being mad, in fact he is probably the smartest person in the play. It's not easy to spot but the way he talks is just not how an insanely mad person would talk. He is always one step ahead of anything that people try to bring on him, for ex: When Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were spying on Hamlet he already knew what was going up and eventually he had them executed. An insane person can be smart there is no doubt, but he wouldn't be as rational as Hamlet was. In conclusion, Hamlet was not mad and it was part of his plan to avenge the death of his father.

I also think that Hamlet was not mad. As Brandon said, he told Horatio that he will act mad in order to revenge his father's death. It is likely that everything was planned for Hamlet. Also he had straight mind in order to check if Claudius was really guilty for killing Hamlet's dad. He was aware of the existence of devil, and was lucid enough to consider all the factors. In addition, witnessing the ghost doesn't make Hamlet mad because all the other people, like Horatio and Bernardo saw the ghost with Hamlet. Hamlet was the only one who saw the ghost in the room with Gertrude but who knows? Gertrude could be lying out of guilt and fear and told Hamlet she didn't see anything.

I personally think that Hamlet was not mad when he committed all the crimes and thus is guilty. His madness couldn't be proven in other ways.

I think Hamlet wasnt crazy or mad for real, he pretended to be mad. He was just fine when he was talking to Horatio, his vest friend. It proves that he wasnt mad.

I agree with you Brandon. Hamlet does not seem to be mad to me, especially during his soliloquies, that is when he is talking to himself. He is thinking about deep and philosophical ideas but making his decisions based on logic which a mad person would find hard to do.

We all know that Hamlet pretended to be mad to check whether Claudius killed King Hamlet or not. But at some point in the plot, I think Hamlet really became mad. He killed Polonius without control and claimed that he saw a ghost whereas Gertrude could not. Even though we do not know whether the ghost was real or not, we do know that Hamlet never acted like this before. And before the duel with Laertes, Hamlet has apologized Laertes that his madness was the cause of Polonius’s death, not Hamlet himself. From these lines, we have slightly convincing evidences that Hamlet really became mad.

i think that Hamlet is not crazy. He has pretended to be crazy to distract people attention toward him and approach Polonius to use him as a tool to prove that his madness is due love. As Claudius's reaction has told Hamlet the truth about his father's death, it told us that everything was merely Hamlet's plan.