Hamlet Psychology Slide Show

7/27/2019 Hamlet Psychology Slide Show

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Psychology in Hamlet

English 640

Dr. Fike


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Todays Topics

Two strands of psychology relevant to

Hamlets situation:

Elizabethan psychology

Psychoanalysis

Main point: Psychology adds another

dimension to Hamlets uncertainty and

hesitation.


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Elizabethan Psychology

What is up with this passage?

1.5.107-9: my tables?

What is Hamlets point here?


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Chart

Being a contemplation, inability to

student melancholy act; hesitation

POINT: A life of contemplation makes Hamlet ill-suited

to the decisive action that that ghost demands (U of Mstory).

REASON: He is too concerned with the consequencesof his actions (cf. the way he considers theconsequences of suicide and of dispatching Claudius

during prayer).

Excellent source on melancholy: Lawrence Babb, TheElizabethan Malady


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Being a Student

This in itself is not conducive to action, but thereis more. Study leads to melancholy, which alsomakes action difficult.

Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy:study weakens [scholars] bodies, dulls theirspirits, abates their strength and courage; andgood scholars are never good soldiers(I.2.3.15).

Hamlets melancholy is our first major topic fortoday.


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Analogy Chart, First Slide

OIL REFINERY

Propane

Gasoline

Kerosene

Diesel

Lubricants

Semi-solids

Lightest and most

volatile

Heaviest and least

volatile


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Analogy Chart, Second Slide: See

Bedford254-55

Hot and drycholer(choleric)

Hot and moistblood

(sanguine) Cold and moist

phlegm (phlegmatic)

Cold and dryblack

bile (melancholy):a.k.a. the scholarsdisease

Hotspur

Falstaff

Antonio (MV)

Hamlet


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Points:

The mixture of elements determines your

personality.

Drers Melancholy:

http://www.alchemylab.com/melancholia.ht

m
http://www.alchemylab.com/melancholia.htmhttp://www.alchemylab.com/melancholia.htmhttp://www.alchemylab.com/melancholia.htmhttp://www.alchemylab.com/melancholia.htm


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Examples of Hamlets Melancholy

1.2.133-34: lethargy

2.2.296: joylessness

2.2.602: cant express his feelings and issubject to demon affliction; melancholy

makes the ghosts identity dubious


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Other Characteristics

Brooding

Despondency

Suicidal impulses Cynical satire

Mood swings

Fits and starts of rash activity (likestabbing Polonius)


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Points

Hamlet obviously has some of these characteristics, buthe 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 Byindirections [to] find directions out, in the words of Polonius(2.1.67).

Still, Hamlets soliloquies reveal genuine melancholycharacteristics.


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How do you cure melancholy?

Remember: Hamlet is a student, he haslost the throne, and his dad is dead: goodreasons to be bummed out.

3.1.165-77: The king proposes a cure. Typical cures:

Taking the air, travel, change of scene

Stress reductionAnalogy: going to Miami beach for spring

break


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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?).


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The Second Strand of Psychology

Freudian Psychoanalysis


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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 ofthe superego and the further hesitation to act

on the repressed urges.


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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


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Question

How many mothers and mother figures are

there?


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Answer

Gertrude, Hecuba, and the player queen

Of these, only Gertrude is an actual

character.


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Points

Remember, of course, that there were no femaleactors in Shakespeares day.

Fatherhood is dispersed among a number of

characters; therefore, the Oedipal hatred findsmultiple objects. Hostility toward the father isreflected in the proliferation of father figures.

Motherhood is centered on one character:

Gertrude. The Oedipal love is intensely focusedbecause it is exclusively focused. Condensationof the mother into one figure suggests theintensity of love of the mother.


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But wait: theres more!

Claudius is both a father figure to Hamlet and a sonfigure to Hamlet, Senior (cf. Oliver inAYLI).

As a son figure, Claudius has done the thing that Hamletwishes to do but has repressed into his unconsciousmind, the result being the superego. But mentally,Hamlet has committed the same crime (killing Hamlet,Sr.). How, then, can he punish Claudius for doing thething that he himself wanted to do? So he delays.

Claudius is also a father figure to Hamlet (I am toomuch in the sun, he puns at 1.2.67). He doesnt kill

Claudius because doing so is too close to the tabooOedipal act of father killingthe desire Hamlet hasrepressed into his unconscious mind. Again, Hamletssuperego is very strong.


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Another Possibility

Maybe Claudius is Hamlets biological father.Maybe if he kills Claudius, he kills his REALFATHER! Again, Hamlet is too close to actingout the repressed Oedipal fantasy.

The Pyrrhus stuff in 2.2 is a Freudian act ofcompromise: like Hals decision to rejectFalstaff rather than his father. And a furtherremove: One speech in t I chiefly loved: twas

Aeneas tale to Dido, and thereabout of itespecially when he speaks of Priams slaughter(2.2.445-48).


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Summary of Key Points

Hamlets melancholy leads to uncertainty

and hesitation.

The conflict between Hamlets Oedipal

feelings and his superego leads to

hesitation.


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Jungian Psychology--Typology

Hamlet

Thinking

Introversion

Gertrude

Feeling

Extraversion


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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


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Possible Jungian Interpretations

The sea voyage furthers Hamlets psychicintegration (the individuation process): hisencounter with the pirates = an encounter withhis own shadow.

The fight with Laertes in the graveyard =acknowledgement of his shadow.

Ophelias death ends the possibility of properlyintegrating his feminine side.

My position: Hamlet does do a lot of work with

his shadow, but he runs out of time and does notintegrate his anima.


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The Graveyard Scene

A probably too-optimistic reading byElizabeth Oakes: Hamlet can leap intoOphelias grave and emerge, an action

that not only graphically illustrates hisrebirth but also foreshadows his spiritsvictory over death at the end of the play(112).

See 5.1.246ff.


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My Take

The only trouble here is that it is her brother Laertes, rather thanerstwhile suitor Hamlet, who leaps into Ophelias grave. Regardingthis detail, there is wishful thinking afoot among the plays Jungiancritics. Rogers-Gardner also claims that Hamlet jumps intoOphelias grave (14), and Porterfield has Hamlet leap into it withLaertes (94). The stage directions have Laertes grapple with

Hamlet a few lines later and do not say whether Laertes leaps out ofthe grave or whether Hamlet leaps in. Although directorial licensepermits Hamlet to join Laertes in Ophelias grave, the text does notsupport this interpretation. Instead Hamlets statementthatLaertes attempts To outface me with leaping in her gravesuggests that he himself does not do so (5.1.280). As a result, astatement about Hamlets grave-leaping in connection with symbolicrebirth is simply not accurate.

--Dr. Fike

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