The Hamlet Syndrome

Jeffrey R. Wilson and Henry F. Fradella

Working Paper from Harvard University OpenScholar

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.

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