Psychoanalytic Criticism and Hamlet

&“’Man and Wife is of One Flesh’ Hamlet and the Confrontation with

the Maternal Body” Presented by: Seth CarpenterJames Nicholas

Rebecca OttJeffrey Ward

What is Psychoanalytic

Criticism?Psychoanalytic criticism is the way we analyze

what we read just we do dreams.

Dreams are like literary works…..they are inventions of the imagination. Both dreams and literary works need interpreted before we can grasp the truth.

Sigmund Freud

Even if we haven’t read anything by Freud, “at one time or another most of us have either referred to ego, libido, compleses, unconscious desires and sexual repression”. (241)

He established the connection between

dreams and literatureHe discusses our Ego and Super Ego

Ego: Rational Super-Ego: Moral Goodness

They’re the part of the mind that “polices” or represses what we should & shouldn’t do

(Freud continued)He believed the most commonly repressed feeling was to displace then replace the parent of our own sex to get the affections of the parent of the opposite sex.

(Example from pg.243)

May fear that his father

will castrate him

May wish his mother would

start nursing him again

A Boy

Freud believed that a writer summarizes his own feelings into his work

(Freud continued)

Is this true? Do we summarize our

feelings and place them in the papers we write?

Freud also mentions “Manifest Dreams” or dream story which are used to figure out a person’s thought process

Carl Gustav Jung

Gustav broke Freud’s emphasis on sex and developed a theory that “a great work of literature is not a disguised expression of its author’s personal, repressed wishes; rather it is a manifestation of desires once held by the whole human race but now repressed because of the advent of civilization.” (244)

Other poets and novelists used Freud’s model

Conrad Aiken

Robert Graves

William Faulkner

Henry James

Wellek & Warren

Included psychological criticism in their influential book, Theory of Literature where they state, “psychological criticism ….attempts to at least one of the following provide a psychological study of an individual writer; explore the nature of the creative process; generalize about “types and law present within works of literature”; or theorize about the psychological “effects of literature upon the readers” (81). (245)

Jacques Lacan

Lacan treated the unconscious as a language, a form or discourse.

He tried to improve Freud of psyche and gender

He argued that girls and boys learn language different.

• Boys learn different than girls.

• They learn to desire substitutions for their mother

“’Man and Wife is of One Flesh’ Hamlet and the Confrontation with the

Maternal Body”

Written by Janet Alderman

Alderman focuses primarily on the sexual relationship between Gertrude and Hamlet.

Adelman toys with the idea of the power of sexuality over that of family dynamics and identity.

Stresses importance on Hamlet’s sexual obsession with his mother, Gertrude.Hamlet refers to his mother’s body as that of one “as an enclosed garden newly breached”.

Gertrude is the tool by which Hamlet’s father issues come to life

She is to blame because she didn’t mourn Hamlet's fathers dead which makes Prince Hamlet feel as if King Hamlet was degraded

Gertrude’s Part in the play

Claudius & Gertrude

Claudius is to blame for Hamlet’s mother’s over sexuality

Gertrude’s body is said to be an unweeded garden. Things once grew there but now since Claudius came along, weeds over taken the garden.Hamlet views his mother’s sexuality as a sign of betrayal to his father

Claudius

Prince Hamlet feels he needs to kill the current king (Claudius) who killed the old king (King Hamlet) in order to become the new king.

Hamlet sees Claudius in the role of his father which makes it difficult to murder him since it could be seen as killing his father, King Hamlet

Claudius continuedEven though Claudius wears the crown, Prince Hamlet doesn’t see him as king.

To Hamlet, being king isn’t about the title, but about the image behind that title.

Hamlet realizes he is not like his father. However, he’s becoming more like Claudius which is causing him to distant himself away from his father.

By separating Claudius away from the image of his father, Hamlet is separating himself.

Ophelia

Hamlet doesn’t want to get near to Ophelia because he doesn’t want her to treat him like his mother treated his father

By not mourning/giving her love to another

Doesn’t want to be degraded like his father seemed to be by his lover/family

To ask, or not to ask questions…..

That Is The Question?!

The End