How Does Hamlet Change Throughout The Play

Many people have seen Hamlet as a play about uncertainty and about Hamlet's failure to act appropriately. It is very interesting to consider that the play shows many uncertainties that lives are built upon, or how many unknown quantities are taken for granted when people act or when they evaluate one another's actions. Hamlet is an especially intriguing production, both on the set and on the screen because of its uniqueness to be different from what most people expect to be in a revenge themed play. Hamlet's cynicism and insane like behavior cause him to seem indecisive, but in reality he is always judging and contemplating his actions in the back of his mind in order to seek revenge for the murder of

The English Play writer, William Shakespeare had written many well-known pieces of work including Hamlet. Hamlet is known to be one of his most popular works. Hamlet was written in the late 16th Century about the Prince of Denmark. The original title of the work was The Tragedy of Hamlet, now it is referred to as just Hamlet. In Hamlet, William Shakespeare uses the mental state of his characters to prove that not all characters in books have to be one dimensional. Shakespeare’s writing shows that humans are complex, and can have different mental states. Characters throughout the story such as, Hamlet, Gertrude, and Ophelia show their not so stable mental state. First we will analyze Hamlet and talk about Ernest Jones’ Psycho-analytic study of Hamlet. Then we will talk about Ophelia and how the events that happened leading up to her death or suicide played a role into her mental state. Finally we will analyze Gertrude, the Queen’s role in Hamlet, and how she is a mentally weak woman and relies on the men in her life.

“Hamlet’s relation to the maternal has often turned on a psychology complete with Freudian repressed infantile fantasies and adult son’s fears and revulsion of complex female relationships and interactions” (Kumamoto 4). This insight into Hamlet’s behavior, and how deeply seated (yet, possibly unconscious) his revulsion of Ophelia’s desires may have been makes it easier for the reader to understand how his almost intuitive reaction to Ophelia is what, in turn, provokes her madness and thereby, her death. Hamlet could not, from a psychological standpoint, have loved Ophelia genuinely or pursued a life with her if he was fixated on his mother and at the same time, repelled by her blossoming sexuality and what he feels is her (his mother’s) impiety and harlotry.

When individuals struggle to balance a desire for independence with the need to maintain meaningful relationships with others, it often results in complicated decisions, which alter relationships. In the play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, the author justifies that when an individual is caught up in a dilemma, between one’s self-motivation or sincere relationships, meaningful relationships alter as a result of sophisticated decisions made. Hamlet is a character that is caught up in the crossfire between pursuing his self-motivations and his need to stay loyal to his relationships, with Ophelia, King Claudius, and his mother Gertrude.

In William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, the playwright introduces the compelling, complex, and complicated character of the Prince of Denmark, Hamlet. In the events of the play, Hamlet swears revenge against his uncle for the foul murder of his father, the king. However, despite his intense catalyst, Hamlet reveals to be continuously torn between his motive of revenge and conflicted conscience, generating an inability to carry out his desired actions. While Hamlet possesses the passion and intellect to murder his uncle, Claudius, his actual inclination to act upon the murder directly opposes that of his powerfully emotional contemplations (S.T. Coleridge). Hamlet’s overzealous thoughts become unrealistic compared to his actual endeavors throughout the play.

Rothman expresses that “Freud thought that prudery and denial had for centuries prevented critics from acknowledging the play’s propulsive undercurrent, which, he believed, the new psychoanalytic vocabulary made it possible to acknowledge. “The conflict in ‘Hamlet’ is so effectively concealed,” he wrote, “that it was left to me to unearth it” (Rothman 5). However, it is important to note that although this literary analysis and theology is a valid breakthrough in how one views and acknowledges Hamlet, it is by no means an all-explanatory guide to the soul existence that is Hamlet. Rothman mistakes the Oedipus Complex (Freud theology regarding Hamlet) as the root of the play, arguing “the Oedipus complex provides the definitive interpretation of ‘Hamlet”. It is naive and arrogant to assume one definitive analysis technique (in this case psychoanalysis) as the majority of the play; in reality, it is the infinite number of analyzations spoken about by an infinite number of critics that make up the true meaning of Hamlet. In simpler terms, the true meaning is the decades of diversely collective thoughts, analysis, and ideas presented as the play’s

Shakespeare's play "Hamlet" is about a complex protagonist, Hamlet, who faces adversity and is destined to murder the individual who killed his father. Hamlet is a character who although his actions and emotions may be one of an insane person, in the beginning of the book it is clear that Hamlet decides to fake madness in order for his plan to succeed in killing Claudius. Hamlet is sane because throughout the play he only acts crazy in front of certain people, to others he acts properly and displays proper prince like behavior who is able to cope with them without sounding crazy, and even after everything that has been going on in his life he is able to take revenge by killing his father's murderer. In the play Hamlet by William

Throughout the Shakespearian play, Hamlet, the main character is given the overwhelming responsibility of avenging his father’s "foul and most unnatural murder" (I.iv.36). Such a burden can slowly drive a man off the deep end psychologically. Because of this, Hamlet’s disposition is extremely inconsistent and erratic throughout the play. At times he shows signs of uncontrollable insanity. Whenever he interacts with the characters he is wild, crazy, and plays a fool. At other times, he exemplifies intelligence and method in his madness. In instances when he is alone or with Horatio, he is civilized and sane. Hamlet goes through different stages of insanity throughout the story, but his neurotic and skeptical personality amplifies his

Throughout the play, Hamlet, Shakespeare applied a myriad of motifs to enhance the meaning and complexity of his work. One of the numerous motifs utilized in the play is madness. The question of Hamlet’s actual madness is profusely raised among readers in the Elizabethan era and is still brought up numerous times today. Some may assert that Hamlet was literally mad and others may argue that Hamlet’s madness was feigned. In the beginning of the play, Hamlet spotted his father’s ghost and discerned that his father’s death was caused by his uncle, Claudius. This situation initiated a whirlwind of events that took Hamlet on a downward spiral. These events are comprised of Hamlet’s actions to try to avenge his father’s death. They support and convey the impression that Hamlet’s madness was real. Although, Hamlet specifically claimed that he was not mad in the text. Hamlet’s madness was feigned since he confessed his reasoning for his antic disposition in order to avenge his father’s death and get revenge for Claudius’ actions.

In Hamlet, Shakespeare uses various characters to demonstrate the concept of passion versus reason. He uses his story to show the readers that passion and reason can both exist, but it is necessary to find a balance between the two. As evident in Prince Hamlet’s life, an overabundance of passion can be harmful to oneself and to others. Throughout the play, he faces an internal battle: he must choose between rationality and sentiment. This task becomes especially hard, however, when the ghost of Hamlet’s father comes back from the grave to share the horrible story of his murder. The late King has been poisoned and replaced by his own brother, Claudius, and, driven by sorrow and agony, Prince Hamlet decides to get revenge. Hamlet’s plan is to kill Claudius. This idea seems extreme. However, it is reasonable that the Prince would act irrationally as a coping strategy. In times of loss, especially after the loss of a parent, it is normal to experience overwhelming thoughts and sometimes “emotional issues” arise (“Adult Death of a Parent).

Throughout Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, the main character, Hamlet, must seek revenge for the murder of his father. Hamlet decides to portray an act of insanity, as part of his plan to murder Claudius. Throughout the play, Hamlet becomes more and more believable in his act, even convincing his mother that he is crazy. However, through his thoughts, and actions, the reader can see that he is in fact putting up an act, he is simply simulating insanity to help fulfil his fathers duty of revenge. Throughout the play, Hamlet shows that he understands real from fake, right from wrong and his enemies from his friends. Even in his madness, he retorts and is clever in his speech and has full

Within Hamlet, Shakespeare depicts the story of Hamlet, the prince of Denmark. The play begins with a ghost who claims to be Hamlet’s father revealing the tragic story of his own murder. After hearing the ghost denounce his uncle, Claudius, as a murderer, Hamlet devises a plan to entrap him: “How strange or odd some’er I bear myself (as I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on)” (1.5.190-192 ). Though Hamlet explains to the readers that he is using the appearance of insanity to uncover the guilt of his uncle, it seems that his act bleeds into his state of mind.

Throughout William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Shakespeare portrays Hamlet with the same types of behaviors and frustrations in humans that Sigmund Freud saw at a much later date. When the relationship between Hamlet and his mother is analyzed Freud's oedipal complex theory comes to mind. The oedipal complex is a theory created by Freud that states that "The child takes both of its parents, and more particularly one of them, as the object of its erotic wishes."(51) Because of this desire to be with the parent of the opposite sex, a rivalry is formed with the parent of the same sex. In the play, Hamlet shows great hostility toward his uncle Claudius because his mother's remarriage to him. Hamlet sees his mother's remarriage as disgusting

Hamlet’s character drastically develops over the first four acts of Hamlet, and his character development is most evident through the soliloquys he delivers throughout the play. The most character development can be seen from the first soliloquy, to the second, the third, the sixth, and the seventh and final soliloquy. Hamlet’s inner conflict with his thoughts and his actions are well analyzed in his soliloquys, as well as his struggles with life and death, and his very own existence. He begins the play wondering what purpose he has in life now that his father is dead and his mother has remarried to his uncle. After finding out foul play was involved in his father’s death, he is motivated by revenge. Finally, he wonders how he can enact his revenge while continuously overthinking and overanalyzing his actions.

From the beginning of the play, Hamlet is labelled as a heavy hearted and unhappy man. This is seen as “Hamlet’s Transformation” as the King called it. He has not always been like this. In Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, Prince Hamlet experiences many dilemmas that lead him to revenge and his transformation form good to evil. Shakespeare displays that revenge leads to insanity. Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, Hamlet’s uncle also known as his step-father, Claudius, and Hamlet’s dead father, King Hamlet, all drive Hamlet to lose his mind and become insane. This change in Hamlet is brought to him by devastating and life changing events that have recently happened, and did not only cause a mental reaction, but specifically a moral reaction.