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Hamlet (c. 1600) is perhaps the most famous of all the tragedies created by William Shakespeare. The main character – Hamlet – may be the most complex and controversial character any playwright has ever placed onstage. Hamlet’s erratic behavior poses a question: is he being rational in his acts and sacrificing himself for the “greater good” or is he simply mad? How and why does Hamlet move from one state of mind to the other? What significance …

…or not, and if so, how. Those are not easy questions. By showing Hamlet’s uncertainty and inability to make a decision throughout the play, Shakespeare makes him so human that the reader starts to wonder whether Hamlet did actually exist. Also Shakespeare shows the reader that for a man with Hamlet's ideals, the world is out of joint with itself, a world in which he can only hope for perfection, but never achieve it.