Chandula Perera
Professor Alan Nadler
English 201
15 May 2015
Interrelation between the Psychological Portraits of Hamlet and Claudius While investigating for clues to relate the psychological facts between these two huge personalities in Shakespeare’s novel Hamlet, I found some valuable information that will help to summarize the thesis of this topic. “Hamlet focuses on the complications arising from love, death, and betrayal, without offering the audience a decisive and positive resolution to these complications” (Amanda). Like Amanda mentioned, my focus on this essay is to clarify what caused these complications to happen psychologically from each side of the characters Hamlet, and Claudius. By finding out what caused them psychologically, we can come to a clear understanding about the two characters. This will help the audience to accept the whole story and to believe everything that happened in each scene meant something, which is really important. To go through all of this, I have divided my paper into three parts. In the first section, I provide the psychological background of the character Hamlet, with some quotes I found which will help this section and its understanding. In the next section, I have wrote about the psychological portrait of Claudius, I felt it is important to study both characters individually before jumping in to a conclusion. So as for the third section I have shown which qualities of them, interrelate with each other, also with the help of a
On William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, after the assassination of his father, Hamlet thinks he is living in a world full of corruption and deceit, where everything is falling apart and everyone is against him. An imminent, exaggerated, and passionate love for his mother is his main feature. Although others argue that Hamlet’s obsession to murder Claudius is strictly to claim revenge for his father’s death, it is Hamlet’s obsessive desire to possess his mother in an unhealthy and, perhaps incestuous, relationship. Hamlet also appears jealous of Claudius, his father-uncle, jealous of him for having Gertrude and for owning the crown. He lives a love-hate relationship with his mother. He is full of anger towards her, but at the same time he
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.
Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a tragic play about murder, betrayal, revenge, madness, and moral corruption. It touches upon philosophical ideas such as existentialism and relativism. Prince Hamlet frequently questions the meaning of life and the degrading of morals as he agonizes over his father’s murder, his mother’s incestuous infidelity, and what he should or shouldn’t do about it. At first, he is just depressed; still mourning the loss of his father as his mother marries his uncle. After he learns about the treachery of his uncle and the adultery of his mother, his already negative countenance declines further. He struggles with the task of killing Claudius, feeling burdened about having been asked to find a solution to a situation that was
Shakespeare's drama Hamlet has become a central piece of literature of Western culture. It is the story of a prince named Hamlet, who lost his father. Soon after that he has to confront multiple obstacles and devises a series of situations to defend the new king's royalty. Furthermore, he had to prove that King Claudius, who was the prince's uncle, had killed Hamlet's father. This story has remained among the most popular and the most controversial plays around the world. It generates controversy for all the doubts that this play leaves with the readers. One of the most questioning situations in the play is the delay of Hamlet in avenging Claudius' for his father's death. As a reader this
The Tragedy of Hamlet is a famous work written by Shakespeare in the late 14th century. Within the story, there are many characters who appear to be very “off”. Hamlet seemingly goes insane, The King is on a power trip, Ophelia goes insane and potentially kills herself, and the Queen remarries almost immediately. These are not behaviors normal humans show, and so I will be diagnosing King Claudius with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Hamlet is considered to be Shakespeare's most famous play. The play is about Prince Hamlet and his struggles with the new marriage of his mother, Gertrude, and his uncle and now stepfather, King Claudius about only two months after his father’s death. Hamlet has an encounter with his father, Old King Hamlet, in ghost form. His father accuses Claudius of killing him and tells Hamlet to avenge his death. Hamlet is infuriated by this news and then begins his thoughts on what to do to get revenge. Hamlet and Claudius are contrasting characters. They do share similarities, however, their profound differences are what divides them.Hamlet was portrayed as troubled, inactive, and impulsive at times. Hamlet is troubled by many things, but the main source of his problems come from the the death of his father. “Oh, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew, or that the everlasting had not fixed his canon 'gainst self-slaughter” (Act 1, Scene 2). In this scene, Hamlet is contemplating suicide, which is caused by the death of his father and the new marriage of Gertrude and King Claudius. This scene shows the extent of how troubled Hamlet is. Even though Hamlet’s father asked him to avenge his death, Hamlet is very slow to act on this throughout the play. “Now might I do it pat. Now he is a-praying. And now I’ll do ’t. And so he goes to heaven. And so am I revenged.—That would be scanned. A villain kills my father, and, for that, I, his sole son, do this same villain send to heaven” (Act 3, Scene 3). This scene shows King Claudius praying, while Hamlet is behind him drawing his sword but decides not to kill
Shakespeare’s character, Hamlet, is known for his indecisive personality. It is a trait that humanizes Hamlet in the sense that every man is flawed. However, this feature is Hamlet’s main
Hamlet is as much a story of emotional conflict, paranoia, and self-doubt as it is one of revenge and tragedy. The protagonist, Prince Hamlet of Denmark, is instructed by his slain father’s ghost to enact vengeance upon his uncle Claudius, whose treacherous murder of Hamlet’s father gave way to his rise to power. Overcome by anguish and obligation to avenge his father’s death, Hamlet ultimately commits a number of killings throughout the story. However, we are not to view the character Hamlet as a sick individual, but rather one who has been victimized by his own circumstances.
In the play Hamlet there are many themes that were brought to our attention; Madness, Revenge, Mortality, Religion, Incest, Family, and Death. In this essay we will be discussing two of these themes that we found intriguing, the two themes are Death, and Revenge.
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
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).
Hatred and betrayal lead to nothing but pain and death. Shakespeare references Emperor Nero, and how his mother's betrayal led to Nero sinking her ship, and when that didn’t kill her, sending out an group of legionnaires to kill her. This is similar to Hamlet and his position in the play. Although he doesn't have the same bloodthirst as Nero, he shares the idea of betrayal. Both Nero and Hamlet share the idea that their mother betrayed their father, both of them have a stepfather whose name is Claudius, and both can be acknowledged as killers. This revenge of theirs will forever change how they are portrayed.
Nature versus nurture is a common sociological theory that has the ability to be used on anyone. Nature means the way someone was born or their genes, and nurture is someone’s environment. People argue which affects a person more. In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, there have been numerous arguments saying that his uncle Claudius is actually his father due to their similarities. With the argument of nature versus nurture one can argue that they act so much alike because Hamlet’s environment growing up was being around Claudius. By looking at both Hamlet and Claudius’; inaction/action, plots to murder one another, their diction, their relationships with Gertrude, the way they treat women and their advisors, it proves that Claudius is not
Claudius and Hamlet are both very selfish men. Claudius wants to be the king of
Hamlet is one the best known works of Willian Shakespeare, a play that emphasizes revenge, as one of the major topics . The main character hamlet is driven by all of this revenge matter , and ends up physically killing 2 people, Claudius and Polonius, as well as indirectly causing the deaths of 5 other characters throughout the play. It is a Play that leaves us with uncertainty and doubts , we can go either way, we could see hamlet as a protagonist who seeks justice for his father’s murder or an antagonist, because let 's be realistic it is a bit extreme all the deaths he cause just to avenge one person. I chose to look at hamlet through the psychoanalytic criticism scope. I will attempt to demonstrate how his id, ego, and super ego influenced In his behavior and decision on murdering his uncle, and the problems he confronted while attempting to accomplish his fathers will to do so. Hopefully, we can make a decision after being presented hamlet through this new perspective.