Hamlet's gone Insane: A Part of Me is Lost

How Many Wrongs To Make A Right?

The Brave One (2007)
In this movie, The Brave One, starring Jodie Foster, a woman looses her fiance to mugging and murder. After seeing what life is without the same man beside her and knowing how he was taken from her, she decides to go after the killer herself. Loosing herself to an unknown being inside her, one that sprung from the hate and desire for revenge, Foster's character becomes ruthless and commits several other crimes in an effort to find the murderers. The question then remains not only how to cope without someone but how to cope with a being you have created.

My life has recently taken a turn in a direction I cannot seem to point to. All I can seem to determine is that there is a part inside me that is burned; its blistered blackened flesh twists with every move I make. Recently Hamlet came to me with a different color in his eye, not speaking a word, yet his actions said too much… “He took me by the wrist and held me hard” (2.1.99). Just as in the movie the woman lost her mate, I feel I have eternally lost mine—there is no going back. Foster’s character says in the movie “I never understood how people lived with fear, and then it touched me…When you love something, every time a bit of it goes, you loose a piece of yourself”. This seems to create in me a sense of understanding and parallelism. I feel as if the love and passion between Hamlet and I is torn with no replacement seam.

Ever since I did “repel his letters and denied his access to me” (2.2.121-122) Hamlet has been so away from my life it has given me a headache after headache, as if when he goes I go. And as seen in this movie I see it as a crystal ball that may almost tell the future. I feel so strongly to want the old Hamlet back, the man of intellect, jolliness, and confidence. If what it takes to get him back requires me to seek revenge on those who took him away from me—I do not know if I can subside that desire. Foster’s character in the movie says “It is astonishing to find that inside you there is a stranger…I killed a man tonight…This stranger is all you are now…There’s no going back”. Do I see myself plotting against the Queen and King whom are currently on my side? Not necessarily. My father, Polonius, had a talk with them begging for him to be able to uncover Hamlet’s true source of insanity, how he is mad for love; “He’s mad, ‘tis true; ‘tis true ‘tis pity” (2.2.105) my father told the Queen and King. I know my father believes that I am the nature of Hamlet’s insanity but I cannot help but believe his sudden irrationality deals with the same plot line as this movie! In the movie the woman has the police, deputies, and town on her side yet feels it is they who are the problem themselves as they are not making an effort to make progress on her case. I cannot seem to condone the fact that maybe Hamlet’s madness has to deal with the death of his father and more largely the newly wedded Queen and King. How can I believe that when Hamlet wrote “Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him” (2.2.131-132) he would simply not be mine? It cannot be! He must love me still! Therefore I have not an option but to look into the case of the Queen and King, what have they done to him! They must be the cause of his insanity. Just as Foster’s character in the movie said, “There are plenty of ways to die, you have to find a way to live”, I must make amends to find the real Hamlet under the thick layers of sin through his family ties. My father wishes to speak to the King and Queen, explain to them that Hamlet is simply lost in madness for my love. Yet I cannot live with this pain, this agony of not having the same Hamlet hold me close, the same mad who deemed me his “soul’s idol” (2.2.117). I need to dig deeper and find the true source of Hamlet’s anger—that is all I can seem to think of. And if it does turn me into something I am not, if it does drive me mad, I will know that it was all in the pursuit of getting back the Hamlet that was taken from me.