Shakespearean Loons Trivia Quiz

Answer: Lady Macbeth

Shakespeare's "Macbeth", the Scottish play, is a study in the insanity triggered by unbridled ambition. While both halves of the power couple central to this iconic tragedy might be said to be suffering from psychological disorders, it it is in Lady Macbeth that madness manifests itself at its most striking.

The mind behind King Duncan's murder, and a material accomplice in the crime, Lady Macbeth does not get to enjoy her queenly status for long. In her sleepwalking scene, probably the play's most celebrated moment, she is racked with guilt and anguish, trying to scrub imaginary bloodstains off her hands as if affected by a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

She eventually takes her own life, prompting Macbeth's famous nihilist "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow" soliloquy.

Answer: Richard III

Shakespeare's historical play of the same title is one of the main sources for Richard III's bad reputation. Indeed, the Bard depicts Richard, Duke of Gloucester, as an amoral villain who, directly or indirectly, brings about the death of a fair number of people, including his brother and his wife.

However, at the end of the play, Richard's cold resolve falters and cracks. Deserted by some of his closest allies, he starts doubting everyone. The night before the battle of Bosworth Field, the king is tormented by the ghosts of all the victims of his scheming.

While the appearance of the ghosts is described as a dream of sorts, Richard's despair upon waking up clearly points to the pangs of a guilty conscience.

Answer: Ophelia

Like "Macbeth" and "King Lear", "Hamlet" gives a central role to the theme of mental deterioration. While the titular character's madness is feigned, he definitely evidences symptoms of various mental disorders, ranging from suicidal impulses to Oedipal desire for his mother (as suggested by Sigmund Freud himself).

His lover Ophelia ends up as the innocent victim of Hamlet's elaborate plans for revenge: the prince, pretending to be mad, first brutally rejects her, then kills her father, Polonius, by mistake.

This double loss unhinges Ophelia's mind; she wanders away from the castle of Elsinore, and drowns in a stream - either accidentally or intentionally, as hinted in the dialogue between the two men who are digging her grave.

Answer: Petruchio

The story of Katherina and Petruchio's courtship, as detailed in Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew", is definitely not an example of political correctness. In our times, the methods by which Petruchio "tames" his unruly wife would very probably land him in trouble for domestic violence.

However shrewish Katherina's behaviour may be (she physically assaults her sister, Bianca, and then strikes Petruchio in a rage), Petruchio's almost sadistic handling of her hints at the development of a rather unhealthy relationship. Though these days Katherina would probably be considered as suffering from some personality disorder, her submissive attitude at the end of the play has been likened to Stockholm Syndrome.

Answer: King Lear

These days, Shakespeare's "King Lear" would probably be interpreted as a tragedy caused by the onset of dementia in an older man, who gradually loses touch with reality and becomes unable to recognize those who really care about him. The titular character believes his two elder daughters' insincere flattery, and disinherits the youngest one, Cordelia, for her honesty. Betrayed by his daughters, who soon show their true colours, Lear descends into madness.

In the famous storm scene, the mad king is joined by another character pretending to be insane - Edgar, the legitimate son of the Duke of Gloucester, under the guise of "Tom O'Bedlam". Though the king eventually regains a measure of sanity, tragedy is lurking around the corner, and quite a few characters meet their end. Lear's initial behaviour, similar to a spoiled child's, might remind the reader of the remark made by another Shakespearean character - Jaques in "As You Like It" - who calls old age "second childishness".

Answer: Malvolio

In Shakespeare's comedy "Twelfth Night", Malvolio is the steward of the household of the wealthy countess Olivia. While not truly insane, he is presented as a conflicted character, prone to delusions. A dour, pompous man who disapproves of any kind of fun and is fanatically obsessed with the idea of sin, Malvolio is deservedly unpopular with the other members of the household. Convinced that Olivia is in love with him, Malvolio becomes the target of a cruel practical joke, when Maria, one of Olivia's maids, forges her mistress' handwriting and pens a letter declaring Olivia's love for him.

The letter also instructs him to wear yellow stockings with cross garters to make Olivia smile. When the countess, who is in mourning for her brother, sees him, she is shocked and offended, and believes him mad. Poor Malvolio ends up locked in a dark room, where he is further taunted by the other servants.

At the end of the play, the deceit is revealed, and he vows revenge on his tormentors.

Answer: Titus Andronicus

Shakespeare's tragedy "Titus Andronicus" is notorious for its over-the-top violence: imagine "Game of Thrones" dialed up to eleven! Though the titular character, a Roman general, starts out as an upright and honourable citizen (probably suffering from what we would now call PTSD, as hinted at the beginning of the play), the machinations of Tamora, Queen of the Goths (whose son Titus has sacrificed as revenge for the deaths of his sons) and her lover Aaron drive him to deranged acts of violence. Without revealing too much about the plot, rape, mutilation and cannibalism are involved, and almost everyone dies in some grisly way or another. "Titus Andronicus" was probably Shakespeare's first tragedy, written in the style of the revenge plays that were very popular in the late 16th century.

Answer: Titania

Titania is the Queen of Fairies in Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" - whose synopsis does sound a bit crazy as a whole, though the character's bizarre behaviour is motivated by magic rather than circumstances. Punished by her husband Oberon for her disobedience, the Queen has the juice of a magical flower squeezed over her eyelids by the mischievous sprite Puck, and upon waking falls in love with the first creature she sees - the donkey-headed weaver Bottom.

Indeed, Titania's behaviour towards the unlikely object of her affections sounds positively addled.

The play's other main characters - two couples of lovers, Hermia and Lysander, and Helena and Demetrius, fall victim to similar pranks. At the end of the play, Theseus, King of Athens, fittingly compares lovers with madmen because of their "seething brains".

Answer: Timon of Athens

Based on a real person, the eponymous protagonist of Shakespeare's "Timon of Athens" starts out as a wealthy gentleman noted for his generosity towards his fellow Athenians. Generous but somewhat naive, Timon gives away all his wealth to help those he believes his friends, and is consequently stabbed in the back by them when he is the one needing help.

After humiliating his false friends by serving them a banquet of rocks and water, he flees the city and finds refuge in a cave in the wilderness, from which he plans his revenge against the whole city of Athens.

He ends up dying alone, consumed by bitterness. Timon's behaviour in the play points to an unbalanced personality, even making allowances for the cruel disappointment he experiences, and his misanthropy sounds like the result of a deep depression.

Answer: Leontes

"A Winter's Tale" is considered one of Shakespeare's "problem plays", because the tone of its first three acts is far from comedic. Its main character, Leontes, King of Sicily, believes his wife, Queen Hermione, has cheated on him with his childhood friend, Polixenes, King of Bohemia.

In his obsessive (and unmotivated) jealousy, he tries to poison Polixenes, throws his pregnant wife in jail after declaring her unborn child to be illegitimate, and has the child abandoned in a desolate place after her birth.

As a consequence of Leontes' irrational behaviour, his only son dies of a wasting sickness, and Hermione is believed dead of a broken heart. The grief-stricken Leontes repents of his cruelty, and spends the following sixteen years in mourning.

The play's happy ending does not erase the sadness and unfairness of the previous events, which show the destructive effects of jealousy. Though not a classic villain, Leontes comes across as a selfish, immature man, as well as a rather unbalanced one.