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Two strands of psychology relevant to Hamlets situation:
Elizabethan psychology Psychoanalysis
Main point: Psychology adds another dimension to Hamlets uncertainty and hesitation.
Elizabethan Psychology
What is up with this passage?
1.5.107-9: my tables? What is Hamlets point here?
Chart
Being a student contemplation, inability to melancholy act; hesitation
POINT: A life of contemplation makes Hamlet ill-suited to the decisive action that that ghost demands (U of M story). REASON: He is too concerned with the consequences of his actions (cf. the way he considers the consequences of suicide and of dispatching Claudius during prayer). Excellent source on melancholy: Lawrence Babb, The Elizabethan Malady
Being a Student
This in itself is not conducive to action, but there is more. Study leads to melancholy, which also makes action difficult. Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy: study weakens [scholars] bodies, dulls their spirits, abates their strength and courage; and good scholars are never good soldiers (I.2.3.15). Hamlets melancholy is our first major topic for today.
Antonio (MV)
Hamlet
Points:
The mixture of elements determines your personality. Drers Melancholy: http://www.alchemylab.com/melancholia.ht m
Other Characteristics
Brooding Despondency Suicidal impulses Cynical satire Mood swings Fits and starts of rash activity (like stabbing Polonius)
Points
Hamlet obviously has some of these characteristics, but he is also playing the role of a nut job:
1.5.181: As I perchance hereafter shall think meet / To put an antic disposition on. 2.2.378: I am but mad north-north-west (i.e., only partly). 3.4.194-95: I essentially am not in madness, / But mad in craft. POINT: Theres method in his madness. He will attempt By indirections [to] find directions out, in the words of Polonius (2.1.67).
Does it work?
5.2.220: the readiness is all (Zen-like) Something about Hamlets sea voyage transforms him. Sea change: wimpologist man of action (epic hero?).
Psychoanalysis
Major source: Ernest Jones, Hamlet and Oedipus Major principles of the Oedipus Complex:
Hatred of the father Love of the mother The boy represses these feelings into his unconscious mind, hence the development of the superego and the further hesitation to act on the repressed urges.
Chart
Fathers and Father Figures Ghost Claudius Polonius Old Fortinbras Fortinbrass uncle Priam Player king Jephthah (2.2.403) Sons and Son Figures Hamlet Laertes Fortinbras Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Lucianus Pyrrhus/Neoptolemus Horatio Claudius
Question
How many mothers and mother figures are there?
Answer
Gertrude, Hecuba, and the player queen Of these, only Gertrude is an actual character.
Points
Remember, of course, that there were no female actors in Shakespeares day. Fatherhood is dispersed among a number of characters; therefore, the Oedipal hatred finds multiple objects. Hostility toward the father is reflected in the proliferation of father figures. Motherhood is centered on one character: Gertrude. The Oedipal love is intensely focused because it is exclusively focused. Condensation of the mother into one figure suggests the intensity of love of the mother.
Another Possibility
Maybe Claudius is Hamlets biological father. Maybe if he kills Claudius, he kills his REAL FATHER! Again, Hamlet is too close to acting out the repressed Oedipal fantasy. The Pyrrhus stuff in 2.2 is a Freudian act of compromise: like Hals decision to reject Falstaff rather than his father. And a further remove: One speech in t I chiefly loved: twas Aeneas tale to Dido, and thereabout of it especially when he speaks of Priams slaughter (2.2.445-48).
Jungian Psychology--Typology
Hamlet Thinking Introversion Gertrude Feeling Extraversion
Jungian Psychology
Characters represent parts of Hamlets psyche:
Ophelia = rejected anima (this leads to negative anima, as in the references to prostitution) Laertes = the shadow Polonius = father, fool, scapegoat Rosencrantz & Guildenstern = tricksters Horatio = reason Gertrude = the terrible mother Ghost = the warrior father or the racial father (connection to instinct) Claudius = shadow of Hamlet, Sr. Fortinbras = the warrior
My Take
The only trouble here is that it is her brother Laertes, rather than erstwhile suitor Hamlet, who leaps into Ophelias grave. Regarding this detail, there is wishful thinking afoot among the plays Jungian critics. Rogers-Gardner also claims that Hamlet jumps into Ophelias grave (14), and Porterfield has Hamlet leap into it with Laertes (94). The stage directions have Laertes grapple with Hamlet a few lines later and do not say whether Laertes leaps out of the grave or whether Hamlet leaps in. Although directorial license permits Hamlet to join Laertes in Ophelias grave, the text does not support this interpretation. Instead Hamlets statementthat Laertes attempts To outface me with leaping in her grave suggests that he himself does not do so (5.1.280). As a result, a statement about Hamlets grave-leaping in connection with symbolic rebirth is simply not accurate. --Dr. Fike