Was Hamlet ever truely insane?
A figure of chaos and wilderness. The person could be dangerous and chooses not to obey the rules. Through their actions, they plunge the world around them into chaos. The Shadow is denied in the person and it is a manifestation of the part of their brain where obsession comes about
- Hamlet
- Chaos and through his action and inaction
- Creates sense of wild fear in the castle
- The Shadow emerges because the angry, revenge-seeking part of Hamlet’s brain is being repressed and it is the Other that coxes Hamlet to fully become the Shadow.
- Driven to seek revenge and does not care who he hurts or what lives he ends.
Ophelia was fine as she was, but her mind starts to unravel once Hamlet starts playing his games. She starts going mad and it is further proof that Hamlet is the Shadow. Everything he touches starts to demise.
Hamlet:
You should not have believ'd me, for virtue cannot
so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of
it. I lov'd you not.
Hamlet:
No, not I;
I never gave you aught.
Ophelia:
My honor'd lord, you know right well you did;
And, with them, words of so sweet breath composed
As made the things more rich. Their perfume lost,
Take these again; for to the noble mind
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
There, my lord.
Ophelia:
Oh, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword,
Th' expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
Th' observed of all observers, quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
that sucked the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
That unmatched form and feature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy. Oh, woe is me,
T' have seen what I have seen, see what I see!
- The Ghost
- Guide Hamlet down the way of the Shadow
- Ghost is nothing more than a part of his imagination
- Forest is commonly a symbol for collective unconsciousness
- Ghost is part of Hamlet's brain convincing him to set his anger and hatred into action to kill the King.
Hamlet:
My fate cries out
And makes each petty artery in this body
As hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve.
Still am I called.Unhand me, gentlemen
“Tis an unweeded garden That grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature Possess it merely
…
O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason would have mourned longer!, married with my uncle, My father’s brother, but no more like my father Than I to Hercules.” (30-31)
Hamlet's Speech
- “an unweeded garden” and “nature possess” are references to the Garden of Eden. Gertrude is the role of eve in the garden in which her husband dies.
- “a beast that wants discourse of reason,” implies the feminist idea that Gertrude (as any other woman) lacks the ability to reason.
What role do Gertrude and Ophelia play in Hamlet’s ‘insanity’?
What is the relation between female sexuality, feminism, insanity, and how it is represented in hamlet?
The Female Archetype
- Representation of the madness of women or women as madness itself.
- Ophelia's Role -Laerte’s pride and joy, Polonius’ innocent daughter, and Hamlet’s “spectre of his psychic fears”.
- Truth about her fragmented self and destruction.
Hamlet. Do you think I meant country matters?
Ophelia. I think nothing, my lord.
Hamlet. That’s fair thought to lie between maids’ legs.
Ophelia. What is, my lord?
Hamlet. Nothing.
(143)
French Feminist Theory
- The woman is presented negatively, having absence, and lack (of power).
- Elizabethan slang for the term “nothing” was a term for the female genitalia.
- Insignificance of women and how Ophelia is deprived of thought, sexuality, and language (her opinion).
Id
“So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word;
It is 'Adieu, adieu! remember me.'
I have sworn 't.”
Hamlet swears to the ghost to get revenge on Claudius.
- Joanna Byles states that, “The Ghost appears as a piece of theatrical aggression for it stops Hamlet’s initial fierce self-restraint; allows him to express his deeply conflicted feelings about Claudius” (127)
HAMLET
Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
Lying down at OPHELIA's feet
OPHELIA
No, my lord.
HAMLET
I mean, my head upon your lap?
OPHELIA
Ay, my lord.
HAMLET
Do you think I meant country matters?
OPHELIA
I think nothing, my lord.
HAMLET
That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.
OPHELIA
What is, my lord?
HAMLET
Nothing.
- This shows another part of the id which is the urge or lust for pleasure.
- Hamlet makes puns towards Ophelia. He doesn’t consider Ophelia’s feelings.
Act III. Scene IV.
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
I took thee for thy better: take thy fortune;
Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.
- Hamlet kills Polonius and he doesn’t feel guilty at all. Instead, he scorns him.
Superego
- Hamlet tells Horatio about his intentions regarding the play.
- David Thatcher states that, “an awareness of his emotional vulnerability motivates Hamlet to seek confirmation of the Ghost’s report.”
- He tells him that if Claudius has any reaction towards the play, which is going to mimic King Hamlet’s death, then the ghost was accurate.
- This is when his superego is controlling him. He’s leading his plan logically so that he doesn’t kill an innocent man.
Act I. Scene II
“To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;”
- Hamlet thinks about suicide but then he talks himself out of it.
- His superego takes control and the fear and anxiety of the unknown plays a part in his decision.
“Thus conscience does make cowards of us all”
- Hamlet realizes how superego has controlled him so far and how it’s preventing him from acting on his desire to kill Claudius.
- Conscience doesn’t let him kill a man.
“Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do;'
Sith I have cause and will and strength and means
To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me:
Witness this army of such mass and charge
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death and danger dare,
Even for an egg-shell.”
- Hamlet witnesses Fortinbras’s army and it acts as an inspiration for him.
- This is when he realizes that he needs to act now instead of just thinking about it.
- He has all the reason to fight but his superego has been preventing him from acting on it.
Ego
Act III. Scene III.
“Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;
And now I'll do't. And so he goes to heaven;
And so am I revenged. That would be scann'd:
A villain kills my father; and for that,
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven”
- Claudius confesses his deeds while Hamlet listens to him secretly.
- Hamlet has the perfect opportunity to kill him but he chooses not to.
- The mind of the id would have killed him immediately while the mind of the superego wouldn’t even think about killing him. His ego rules his mind because he decides to kill him when he doesn’t have a chance to repent, so that he doesn’t go to heaven.
- His ego is satisfied by his promise that he’ll kill Claudius when he catches him red-handed. His Superego is satisfied by the fact that he doesn’t deserve better than his father so he definitely doesn’t deserve to go to heaven.
- Hamlet kills Claudius.
- Queen Gertrude dies instead of Hamlet when she drinks the poisoned drink.
- Hamlet is driven by his revenge of his father’s and mother’s death.
- This differs from id because his id hasn’t been strong enough to actually control him and lead him to Claudius’ murder.
- Claudius kills both of his parents so now it seems logical enough for him get his vengeance.
Superego!
- Although, his id overpowers him at times, it’s too weak to lead hamlet into his actions.
- Hamlet can’t get himself to kill Claudius even with all his temper and grief.
- Hamlet’s id is much weaker than his superego, so the ego barely has influence on him.
- Hamlet is lead by his superego most of the time during the play.
- He acts to be insane so that people around him don’t sense the hostility that he has against Claudius.
- Hamlet has to think about every little step of the plan to kill Claudius.
- If Hamlet was crazy, he wouldn’t have stalled killing Claudius until the end when he had the perfect opportunity that satisfied both his id and his superego.
- He would've killed Claudius earlier in the play without considering the consequences
Byles, Joanna Montgomery. “Tragic Alternatives: Eros and Superego Revenge in Hamlet.” New Essays on Hamlet. Ed. Mark Thornton Burnett and John Manning. Hamlet Collection 1. New York: AMS, 1994. 117-34
How does Hamlet’s language change during the course of the soliloquies and what does this reveal about his state of mind?
- Form and technique over content
- Independent unit of meaning
- ‘close reading’
- Discourages the use of external external evidence
- Focus on rhythm, meter, theme, imagery, metaphor, etc.
Death vs. Life
- Morbid diction: suffer, troubles, die, opposing
Listing using rhythm
- ‘disprized love’, ‘law’s delay’, ‘insolence of office’
- Flow of the list, makes the list fluid
Symbolism of Dreams
Personification of time
Rhetorical questions
Ending doesn’t have rhyming couplet
- Discord, no closure in the ending, Hamlet has not made a decision
- Relates back to the question in the beginning, To be or not to be?
Repetition of “If it be…”
‘Fall of a sparrow’
Last words: ‘Let Be’
- Sense of closure, calm
- Finality in the statement
Sources:
- Showalter, Elaine. "Representing Ophelia: Women, Madness, and the Responsibilities of Feminist Criticism." Shakespeare and the Question of Theory. Ed. Patricia Parker and Geoffrey Hartman. 1985. 77-94. Rpt. in Shakespearean Criticism. Ed. Dana Ramel Barnes. Vol. 35. Detroit: Gale Research, 1997. Literature Resource Center. Web. 14 Mar. 2011.
"Hamlet Haven: Feminism." Hamlet Haven: An Online, Annotated Bibliography. Web. 15 Mar. 2011. <http://hamlethaven.com/feminism.html#adelman>.
How has the power struggles in the play influence the downfall of Prince Hamlet?
- “Upon a wretch, whose natural gifts were poor to those of mine” (Hamlet, Act I, Scene V, Line 56-57).
- “The Anglo-Spanish War, the political and tension in England may have been very significant reasons why power struggles are so frequently present in some of plays that Shakespeare are famously know for” (Fendt 21).
Hamlet's resentment towards Claudius before knowing the truth about his dad's death
- “Aside from helping to develop characters, Shakespeare’s application of proverbs also forces the spectators’ attention to political issues that underlie the major action, such as the struggle for power and concern for legitimacy. Given the political climate of the Elizabethan period, Shakespeare’s audience was interested in these political matters. The playwright uses proverbs to generate a high degree of interest in oppositional politics by depicting diverse ideologies that compete on stage in recreated Denmark and in the minds of the English spectators” (Champion 32-34).
- “So excellent a king, that was to this, Hyperion to a Satyr” (Hamlet, Act I, Scene II).
- When Hamlet found out that his uncle killed his dad intentionally only fueled the fire towards Hamlet’s anger and resentment towards his uncle. Hamlet’s resentment first began to surface when he was denied the throne that should have be his in the first place and that was the beginning of the downfall of Prince Hamlet.
“ they have explored Shakespeare's dramas as reflections of an Elizabethan worldview shaped by the major concerns and probing questions of the Renaissance era, particularly the tension between divine providence and human free will and the delicate balance between social order and the dictates of individual conscience.” Paul N. Siegel
New Scientific Discoveries
Religious uncertainty (Catholic to Protestant)
Hamlet is hesitant to believe the Ghost, he tests his uncle.
“Play something like the murder of my father.” Act II Sc. I
-Hamlet chooses to obey his own conscience
“ a villain kills my father; and for that, I
his sole son, do this same..” Act III Sc.II
It can be described as attaining instant gratification without worrying about the consequences
Psychoanalytic
Which part of the subconscious leads Hamlet?
- Hamlet is distraught by his father’s death, and his mother’s betrayal. At this point, the ghost just tells him what he wants to hear. Thus, hamlet ends up believing him.
Feminism
Archetypal
It’s the conscience. It contains our sense of guilt and knowledge of societal expectations.
The balance between the id and superego, the ego represents reality.
Thatcher, David. “Sullied Flesh, Sullied Mind: Refiguring Hamlet’s ‘Imaginations.’” Studia Neophilologica 68 (1996): 29-38.
Is Hamlet truly Insane?
Reason for the Initial Power Struggle between King Hamlet and Claudius
New Historicism
Specific Examples that influenced the power struggles in the play Hamlet
Shakespeare intentionally wrote Hamlet to seem conflicted
Changes during the Renaissance
- Prince Hamlet knew that he should be the next-in-line to be the King of Denmark but his uncle Claudius jumped in to obtain the crown.
- King Hamlet’s ghost informed Prince Hamlet that Cladius was highly jealous of his brother because he envied the wife, and most importantly the power and social status his brother had.
“internal debate between salvation and conscience”
Marxism
Power Struggles Influence the Play Hamlet
- In Prince Hamlet’s first soliloquy, it seemed like that Hamlet shown resentment towards his uncle because Claudius took over the throne for the deceased king instead the heir apparent Prince Hamlet.
Personification of revenge
- Rhetorical questions
- Talking to idea of revenge
Tone
Metaphor
Answer
New Criticism
Work Cited
- Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Clayton, Delaware: Prestwick House Literary Touch Stone Classics, 2005.
- Champion, Larry S. “A springe to catch woodcocks”: Proverbs, Characterization, and Political Ideology in Hamlet.” HamletStudies 15 (1993): 24-39.
- Fendt, Gene. Is Hamlet a Political Drama? An Essay on a Question in Kierkegaard. Marquette Studies in Philosophy 21. Milwaukee: Marquette UP, 1999