The Hamlet Syndrome

Abstract

Bringing together legal, literary, and cultural studies, this article builds from a close reading of madness in William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet to some psycho-social theories of malingering and the insanity defense in the modern United States. The basis of these theories is the notion that feigned madness – whether purposeful malingering or a failed insanity defense – often signifies actual madness of a lesser sort. When someone is found to be “faking it,” however, that discovery can result in a widespread assumption of mental health in the person on trial, an assumption that often turns out to be wrong.