The Method to the Madness

Questions: Act II #5 = Blog Inspiration

Polonius [aside]: Though this be madness, yet there is method in ‘it–Will you walk out of air, my lord?

I think this quote is a very important quote in Act II and in taking a position on Hamlet’s actions. I think Shakespeare is directly talking to his audience/reader through this quote. I realize that the quote is an aside already, but this aside is even more directed at the audience than other asides in the play because this aside has a specific purpose: to gets the audience thinking about whether or not Hamlet has a goal and whether or not Hamlet has a plan to reach that goal. Polonius’s quote functions as a hammer to nail into Shakespeare’s desire to want his audience/reader to be thinking about the motives behind Hamlet’s actions.

By this time the audience/reader has started to think about whether or not Hamlet’s love for Ophelia is genuine, or if the relationship between the characters is a part of Hamlet’s plan that required Marcellus and Horatio to swear to act unaware of any motives behind anything Hamlet may do after that night with the ghost.

Polonius’s quote is also very interesting to me because there of much evidence for Polonius to draw from that would allow him to believe that Hamlet’s relationship with/for Ophelia is a part of any plot, but surprisingly Polonius still is very suspicious of Hamlets actions to some degree. I have not read Hamlet before so I am not sure if Hamlet’s dealings with Ophelia will have any specific purpose in the end, but my ideas about Hamlet’s plot and Ophelia’s questionable role in his plot are these:

I think the true reasoning for Hamlet’s love-struck and odd behavior towards Ophelia is important and a part of a plan, but not because Ophelia is involved. I think Hamlet just needs a credible witness to his “madness.”

To continue: Polonius’s quote is still correct in two ways: one, to Polonius, he believes Ophelia is a player in some sort of game Hamlet is playing. I think Polonius is not correct in his beliefs, but those are the beliefs in which relate to what Polonius meant by his quote. And two, I think the method to his madness is the madness. I think madness is literally the method Hamlet has chosen to achieve whatever he wants to achieve. I think Hamlet, for some reason feels as though he needs everyone to think he is mad or going mad for the rest of his plan to work the way he has designed it. I think Shakespeare wants us to see this meaning of the quote as well, before he reveals more about Hamlet’s madness, method, and plan.

All of the above discussion assumes that Hamlet has indeed chosen a goal and has already commenced a plan to achieve his goal, but to some that may not be true. I believe Hamlet does have a goal and a plan to achieve his goal. I think the ambiguous true meaning of Polonius’s quote could be the true meaning of the quote itself. Maybe the purpose of the quote is not to make us decide what the point of the quote’s meaning is, but rather the purpose of the quote is just to get us to think about the different points the quote reveals. (562. BOOM, Roasted)