Although at times Hamlet's madness is possibly feigned and strategic, there are many more times when his madness is definitively genuine and, unfortunately, detrimental to his objectives. His madness is possibly feigned and strategic when he is speaking to Ophelia and seems to know that Claudius and Polonius are slyly listening in on their conversation. He could have been insulting and rude to Ophelia because he was trying to convince those he possibly knew were listening that he was mad or, and I believe that this is the more possible explanation, he could have truly been mad. On the other hand, his madness is clearly genuine when he kills Polonius, who was once again spying on him from behind a curtain, by thrusting his sword through the curtain without seeing who was behind it. His response of, "Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool," (Shakespeare 3.4.32) after seeing that he had killed Polonius, the father of the woman he hopes to marry, illustrates his genuine madness as he doesn't even realize that he has clearly now lost his chance to marry the love of his life Ophelia. This example is but one of the many that point to the conclusion that Hamlet is truly and genuinely mad. In order to prove that Hamlet is truly mad, I must address those instances where the evidence may point to him using madness in a strategic way in order to accomplish his goals. I must also address the instances where others may suspect he is feigning his madness, as their suspicion sometimes is warranted. Hamlet's first instance where he may be strategically acting mad is when he is forcing Horatio and Marcellus to swear to not tell a soul that they saw the ghost of the dead king. He says, "How strange or odd some'er I bear myself. As I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on" (1.5.170-172). Here, he is contemplating feigning madness by doing things that would be construed as madness, in other words, putting on an antic disposition. He explains himself by saying that he must do this in order to disguise his newfound goal to avenge his father's murder. This is quite possibly the most concrete example of where Hamlet is illustrating his "fake" madness, but the truly mad are those who tell themselves that they are merely feigning madness. What I mean by this is that Hamlet truly believes he has just been sent on a mission by his father's ghost, and now he is threatening two soldiers, Marcellus and Horatio, who have shown nothing but loyalty to him to swear at the p