hamlet psychology slide show
TRANSCRIPT
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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