Hamlet's feigned madness Hamlet, knowing that he will find himself in trouble, needs to feign madness in order to complete his mission. He tries out his feigned madness with Ophelia first, because even if he fails in his act of pretense, that failure will cause him no real harm. The manifestations of madness that Hamlet will show become predictable, a sure sign that it is a simulated and not real madness. When Hamlet is with a trusted friend, he is rational and symptom-free; However, as soon as those people appear that he wants to convince of his madness, he changes his behavior so as to implant in their minds different explanations for his evident irrational behavior. With Rosencrantz and Guildenstern he makes one believe that reason is a frustrated ambition; with the Queen and the King, that it is their marriage that upsets him; and with Polonius and Ophelia, that it was frustrated love that drove him mad. These rapid and awkward changes from rational conversation with those he trusts to irrational conversation with those he wishes to impress are strong evidence of fraud. In a character profile I read by Max Huhner who has published several literary essays, Huhner reduces Hamlet's problem to one factor, of the kind that Freud conceptualized as a "secondary advantage in mental illness." Hamlet, says Huhner, "could not hold his tongue or keep a secret, and was therefore entirely unfit for diplomatic work. In a sense his feigned madness was his only escape." It is in this same line that I have tried to demonstrate the reasonableness of Hamlet's cruel relations with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, justifying with reasons of practical necessity and desire to avoid risks the fact that Hamlet organized their execution without the heirs having had the possibility of receiving the title. assistance from the Church. I could summarize my analysis of Hamlet's character essentially as the image of an impractical man, who nevertheless proceeded with optimum effect under existing external and internal conditions..