A constant battle exists between characters who are trying to figure out what others think as opposed. Throughout the play, there are several discrepancies between appearances versus reality. It appears that almost everyone is full of deception and ulterior motives. In Act 1, scene 2, Gertrude asks why Hamlet is still in mourning two months after his father died: "Why seems it so particular with thee?" Hamlet responds: "Seems, madam? Nay, it is, I know not 'seems.'" (1. 2. 75-76). The difference between "seems" (appearance) and "is" (reality) encircles the corrupt Denmark kingdom throughout Hamlet. Within the play, the major characters wear a veil of duplicity, which allows for the question to prevail: What is genuinely real and what is appearance or illusion?
Concepts of reality and truth are based on what one perceives. Shakespeare places the ghost of King Hamlet in the first scene, which sets the tone for the entire play. Marcellus and Barnardo witness the ghost of Hamlet with their own eyes. The two then bring Horatio along because he believes the ghost is just a figment of their imaginations. "Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy/And will not let belief take hold of him/Touching this dreaded sight twice seen of us (1. 1. 21-23)." However, once he has seen the ghost with his own eyes, Horatio's attitude changes.
In order to prove what is real and what is not, Hamlet himself must hide his "reality" behind an "appearance" of madness. Here, Hamlet warns that he will put on an antic disposition, pretending to be a madman: "As I perchance hereafter shall think to meet to put an antic disposition on" (1. 5. 173). When Guildenstern is sent by King Claudius to interrogate Hamlet about his mad state, Hamlet expresses: "I am but mad-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw" (2. 2. 365). He means he is not mad but appears to be made knows what's what. Hamlet questions himself whether it is all an act, contemplating suicide, "To be or not to be? That is the question of dying to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream, there's the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come." Hamlet mourns so deeply regarding the death of his father and his mother's remarriage with Claudius that he appears insane, yet he takes advantage of his insanity to avenge his father's wrongful killing. Later, Hamlet arranges a play directing e...
