Ramy Akram-Ahmed
English
4th
Mrs. Gorman

What is madness? The theme of madness plays a role in both Hamlet and Take Shelter. The madness in the two works are not the same in Hamlet he is just pretending to be mad and in Take Shelter Curtis is actually mad. Hamlet uses the fake madness to do his will it does not work out entirely the way he would have liked in the end. Curtis on the other hand cannot control his feelings and behaviors because he is really mad in the brain. A way to brake this all down to fully understand this is to look at first how the characters relate their madness to the world, second how the relate their madness to their loved ones and lastly what are the goals of the characters madness. The characters in the two stores relate to the world in different ways due to their madness or in Hamlets case his fake madness. Hamlet toys with the world in a way, he will just shake the world and mess with it until he hears or gets what he wants. Curtis on the other hand is trying to cut himself off from the world with the shelter that he’s building in his back yard. One thing that is similar between the two is there stubbornness about what they think of the world they think that they are right no matter what. The characters both have a loved one that they both no question love them dearly. The loved one’s in Take Shelter is Curtis’s wife and daughter. He is very committed to his family before he goes made he made a pledge to never leave them like his mother did when she went mad. Hamlet however is like a teenager he doesn’t know when to stop joking with the girl he likes. Hamlet pretends to hate her in his fake madness and doesn’t know when to stop and it gets to the point that she believes him and she no longer loves him and ends up going mad then killing herself. Hamlet and Curtis both love their loved