Hamlet, and his first act, and a bit of Maddy style honesty.

I'm gonna write it in terms I understand, so very little will be Shakespeare.

Essentially, in the start of Hamlet, we learn that Hamlet Sr was the king of Denmark until two months ago, when he died.
Hamlet Sr's brother (Claudius) then got the throne (not sure why, seems sensible to just give the throne to Hamlet Jr, what with Hamlet Jr being Hamlet Sr's child and all).
Claudius then married Hamlet Jr's mum, Gertrude,  which Hamlet Jr is deeply displeased about.
2 months go past, and the guards of the palace of Denmark start seeing the ghost of Hamlet sr.  They decide it's probably a good idea to tell H.J.
In a little court meeting doohickey, H.J. is told by new stepdad Uncle Claudius that he can't go back to Uni, because it will upset his ma, but he should also just get over the whole "OMG my dad is dead" thing.
Laertes leaves, but warns his sister Ophelia that she should stay away from H.J., because he's a bit messed up, and getting preggers without marriage would probably be a bad idea.
H.J. is then told by the guards that there is a ghost of his dad floating about, but not talking to anyone.  H.J. stays up late, and sees his dad's ghost, who then tells him that Claudius put poison in his ear to kill him, and actually it wasn't a snake, like what was publiscised.
H.J. is clearly very upset by this.  He vows to get revenge, but to pretend that he is mad first.

Now, this last bit is a bit confusing for everyone, and has caused much debate about the classroom.
Why would he pretend to be mad?
Why not just get a sword and go chop Claudius' head off while he's drunk downstairs?
Really, just what?

This COULD be an insanely clever attempt at tactics.
If he pretends to be mad, he might get away with killig his Uncle/Stepdad thingy.
He could blame his madness on his completely messed up family.
It could work very well!!

However.
This really does make him seem a wee bit of a wuss.
He could have just killed his uncle on being an adulterer and saying that actually, hey, this bloke killed my dad!!
Then again, where's the proof?  Frankly, if some grieving prince came up to me, killed his uncle, and said "I did that because the ghost of my father told me that my uncle murdered him!" I would probably tell him to get some help.
So, either way, he could be construed as mad.
Which begs the question: Why pretend to be mad when, actually, you're probably going to be seen as mad anyway?
Silly Hamlet.