Hamlet and Madness

A few weeks ago in philosophy, we watched a TED Talk by a journalist discussing madness. One story he brought up was quite interesting to me and also relevant to our class. He said that he found out about a guy who lived in England that was going to jail for around 5 years. During his first week in prison, the guy was told by his cellmate that he should fake insanity. His inmate told him that if he faked insanity he would be sent to a soft cushy facility with his own TV and everything. So the guy went to the prison's psychiatrist and told him that he got sexual pleasure from crashing cars into walls and that he liked to watch people as they die to make him feel more normal. So instead of being sent to a cushy hospital with his own TV, he was sent to Broadmoor Hospital. This was a hospital for the most dangerous of the mentally ill. As soon as he got there, he realized his mistake and tried to convince everybody that he was normal again. He found it tough and soon realized that it is a lot easier to convince people that you're insane than the opposite. He ended up spending fifteen years in the hospital, three times as long as he would have in the prison. The journalist then talked to several doctors and psychiatrist, including the one at the prison. The doctor at the prison realized that he was faking his madness, but the doctor believed that faking madness was a sign of actual madness. This is particularly interesting in terms of Hamlet in determining if he is actually insane or not. In the TED Talk, the journalist talks about a number of other really interesting points so I will leave a link to the video in case anyone would want to watch it.

https://www.ted.com/talks/jon_ronson_strange_answers_to_the_psychopath_test#t-684663