Psychoanalytic Ideas And Shakespeare By Inge Wise And Maggie Mills

Several emotions engulf Shakespeare’s Hamlet throughout the play, the most famous being Hamlet’s own emotional state. His madness, triggered by his incestuous uncle, has led several scholars to explore the psychological causes of his madness. This research into Hamlet’s madness will explore his madness in comparison to other characters, the psychoanalytical studies behind his madness, and defining whether his madness is genuine or another play within the play.

Throughout Shakespeare’s many works, mental illnesses have played an undeniable part in many of them, especially his tragedies. From Lady Macbeth hallucination of a bloody spot leading to her suicide, to Hamlet’s faked illness and Ophelia’s very real illness, afflictions of the mind are featured prominently in the Bard of Avalon’s many works. Still, in the Elizabethan era, understanding of mental illness was rudimentary at best, as were the methods of treating it. During the Middle Ages and Elizabethan Era, numerous theories about mental disorders and how to treat them abounded. Three plays of Shakespeare’s that feature mental illness most prominently are King Lear, Hamlet, and Macbeth, while also managing to showcase the conception of

Hamlet’s sanity has made many people question him. “Hamlet certainly displays a high degree of mania and instability throughout much of the play, but his “madness” is perhaps too purposeful and pointed

Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a work of immense depth in character development, most notably the personal, moral and psychological battles

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

Hamlet, the eponymous hero of Shakespeare’s greatest work, descends swiftly into madness and paranoia after the murder of his father and the realization of his mother’s true, morally reprehensible, nature. As a result of these new responsibilities and extreme circumstances, Hamlet diverges from his usual, logical thinking into paranoia and over analysis, a condition that prevents him from trusting anyone. Hamlet, having been born a prince, is, for the first time, forced to make his own decisions after he learns of the true means of his father’s death. Another contributing factor to his madness is the constant probing of others into Hamlet’s sanity. These factors all contribute to Hamlets delay, and that delay contributes to the tragic

Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays. In it, a young, Danish prince struggles with the death of his father and the betrayal of his mother. This struggle is so profound; it shakes its main character Hamlet to the core and brings him to the brink of sanity. Shakespeare uses madness to convey important information throughout the play especially through Hamlet and his love interest, Ophelia. Hamlet does not always appear to be mad, in fact throughout the play his sanity is questioned by the reader and other characters. Whether real or faked, Hamlet and Ophelia’s madness reveal to us more about their characters, opinions and secrets than their regular discourse.

Many would perceive madness and corruption to play the most influential role in Hamlet. However, it could be argued that the central theme in the tragedy is Shakespeare's presentation of actors and acting and the way it acts as a framework on which madness and corruption are built. Shakespeare manifests the theme of actors and acting in the disassembly of his characters, the façades that the individuals assume and the presentation of the `play within a play'. This intertwined pretence allows certain characters to manipulate the actions and thoughts of others. For this reason, it could be perceived that Shakespeare views the `Elsinorean' tragedy as

In “What Shakespeare Teaches Us About Psychoanalysis” Dorothy Grunes asserts what emotional distress can have on relationships. Grunes develops her claim by introducing the scene in which it occurs stating “In Act IV, Hamlet can only refer to vengeance as to “spur my dull revenge,” and continues stating “ By Act V, only when the Queen is murdered by Claudius can Hamlet murder Claudius and then suicide,” continuing using the quote from the play “Hamlet,” “The end of mothers is the end of the world when Hamlet says to Ophelia: Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? (III.i.121–122),” then shortly follows up on the effects that emotional distress has on Hamlet stating that “He is now so fixated on Gertrude he has no feeling

The character of Hamlet has been an object of extraordinary investigation and abstract examination. Various critics have endeavored to scrutinize the internal workings of Hamlet's mentality all throughout the duration of Shakespeare's play, endeavoring to find why his character remains on a very hesitant level on various occasions and fundamentally reluctant all throughout the scenes of Shakespeare’s play. Various speculations have been voiced on the subject, and numerous conclusions have been determined, although in order to comprehend Hamlet and his activities it is important to plunge into the mindset of his character. Carl Jung's theories on human psychology and mentalities, specifically, his theories of archetypes, can be utilized to comprehend

This essay will discuss several literary criticisms of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. After skimming through several articles, I ended up with four peer-reviewed journal articles, each a different critical perspectives of the play: feminist, psychoanalytical/freudian, moral, and new historicism. My previous studies of Hamlet, as well as my rereading of the play this semester, has collectively given me a general knowledge of the text. My familiarity of the play made it easier for me to decipher the academic journals and see the connections each critic made with the play.

At least six or seven years pass after the writing of Midsummer Night’s Dream before we find Shakespeare engaged on Hamlet, the second of the great plays with an important Supernatural element, and, in the opinion of many, the greatest tragedy ever penned. What a profound change has come over his attitude towards the Unseen! No longer does he handle it in . . . [a] cheerful,

Psychoanalytical criticism is a form of literary critique, which uses some of the techniques of psychoanalysis in the interpretation of literature. One of the more prevalent Psychoanalytical theorists after Freud was Jacques Lacan. In his text, “The Signification of the Phallus,” asserts that the idea of both sexes are based on the male “being” and the female “having” the phallus, and these two differences determine the relations between the sexes while also bringing them together. For Lacan, the phallus for males represents power, authority, and desire while for females the phallus signifies lack of power and agency (182).

In a New Historic analyzation, it is important to note Hamlet’s madness that leads him to paranoia, revenge, and murder. In Shakespeare’s Elizabethan era, madness was defined as “internalization of disobedience”. Using this definition, it can be interpreted that Shakespeare derives Hamlet’s lunacy from the plea for vengeance made by his father’s spirit. Hamlet feels blameworthy and that

William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is one of the world’s most renowned plays, one which has stood the test of time over the course of 400 years, finding relevance even today. A complex and sophisticated work, Hamlet is a masterful weaving of the myriad of components that make up the human experience; it delicately touches upon such topics as death, romance, vengeance, and mania, among several others. Being so intricate and involuted, Hamlet has been interpreted in countless fashions since its conception, with each reader construing it through their own subjectivity. Some of the most popular and accredited methods of analyzing the work are the Traditional Revenge Tragedy, Existentialist, Psychoanalytic, Romantic, and Act of Mourning approaches.