Hamlet - The Imbalance of the Idealistic Mind and Human Nature
It is often heard: Nobody is Perfect. This phrase is often used as a rationalization of foolish human mistakes that could have been prevented. However, this statement has a much more profound significance. It contains an important lesson that guides or rather should guide people through life. By admitting that nobody is perfect, the individual demonstrates a deeper understanding of the human nature and inner self. This knowledge is essential to the individual's creation of healthy relationships with one's surrounding. For as Robert A. Johnson asserts in his book, He, "perfection or a good score is not required; but consciousness is"(76). In William Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, the main character experiences enormous inner turmoil, for he fails to acknowledge the human tendency for imperfection, or more strongly emphasizing, the human proneness to err. With his idealistic perception of the world crushed by his father's death and the incestuous remarriage of his glorified mother, Hamlet unconsciously throws himself into a reality, in which he develops a deep resentment for humanity, and more specifically, for his mother, Queen Gertrude. His frustrating disorientation and misunderstanding of his situation is not brought upon by the repressed sexual desires gaining control of Hamlet's mind, as Sigmund Freud would have it (119), however, it is, perhaps, the necessity, forcing him to abandon his security, that causes Hamlet to become paralyzed in his "meditation of inward thoughts"(Coleridge 95), thus, precluding his ability to act upon his deepest desire to avenge the wrongs.
When King Hamlet, Prince Hamlet's father, was still alive, the prince...
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... now; if it be not now/ yet it [will] come - the readiness is all. Since no man, of/ aught he leaves, knows what is't to leave betime, let be"(5, II, 202-206), Hamlet demonstrates he's newly found understanding as well as contentment with his self, for he has come to terms with the non-idealistic world and reached "tao, the middle way"(Johnson 38).
Through accepting his new identity as it should be in the context of the whole universe, the prince stopped attempting to find everything its place, but rather he allows for the natural order to occur. Accordingly, he is able reason and act in harmony with his mind, for he has reached the Grail Castle, the "inner reality, a vision, poetry, a mystical experience, and it can not be found in any outer place"(Johnson 56).
Works Cited:
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Ed. David Bevington. New York: Longman,1997.
An understanding of William Shakespeare’s philosophies reinforces the meaning of the human condition found in the play Hamlet. The revenge tragedy is an example in the exploration of good versus evil, deceit, madness, inter-turmoil, and utter existence. Shakespeare, fascinated by the human mind and human nature, clearly and completely illustrates the meaning of “self.” Hamlet is a drama that examines one’s personal identity. From the beginning of the story atop the castle when the guards enter the platform to the conclusion of the performance as Hamlet lies, dying in Horatio’s arms every characters’ psychological type is
(Act 1, Scene 2 – Act 1, Scene 5) William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, with a reputation as the greatest of all writers in the English language, as well as one of the world's pre-eminent dramatists. Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most analysed plays. The play is about Hamlet, Prince of Denmark who hopes to avenge the murder of his father.
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is revealed in conversation with his mother, is a negative one and that is anger.
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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 forced upon him.Death is something he struggles with as an abstract idea and as relative to himself. He is able to reconcile with the idea of death and reality eventually.
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, first published in 1606, is an endearing tale outlining the dangers of unchecked ambition and moral betrayal. In the subsequent centuries after first being performed, Macbeths critics have been divided upon whether Macbeth himself was irrevocably evil, or if he was guided by the manipulation and actions of the women in the play to his ultimate demise. Although Lady Macbeth and the witches were influential with their provocations in the opening acts, it is ultimately Macbeth’s inherent immorality and his vaulting ambition, that result in the tragic downfall. It was Macbeth’s desire for power that abolished his loyalty and trustworthiness and led him down a path of murder. It is evident through his actions and words
Shakespeare’s play Hamlet is a complex and ambiguous public exploration of key human experiences surrounding the aspects of revenge, betrayal and corruption. The Elizabethan play is focused centrally on the ghost’s reoccurring appearance as a symbol of death and disruption to the chain of being in the state of Denmark. The imagery of death and uncertainty has a direct impact on Hamlet’s state of mind as he struggles to search for the truth on his quest for revenge as he switches between his two incompatible values of his Christian codes of honour and humanist beliefs which come into direct conflict. The deterioration of the diseased state is aligned with his detached relationship with all women as a result of Gertrude’s betrayal to King Hamlet which makes Hamlet question his very existence and the need to restore the natural order of kings. Hamlet has endured the test of time as it still identifies with a modern audience through the dramatized issues concerning every human’s critical self and is a representation of their own experience of the bewildering human condition, as Hamlet struggles to pursuit justice as a result of an unwise desire for revenge.
“Hamlet is another of the great creations of tragic poetry…What is it that inhibits him in fulfilling the task set him by his father’s ghost?...Hamlet is able to do anything—except take vengeance on the man who did away with his father and took that father’s place with his mother, the man who shows him the repressed wishes of childhood realized. Thus the loathing which should drive him on to revenge is replaced in him by self-reproaches, by scruples of conscience, which remind him that he himself is literally no better than the sinner whom he is to punish.”- Sigmund Freud
In writing Hamlet, William Shakespeare plumbed the depths of the mind of the protagonist, Prince Hamlet, to such an extent that this play can rightfully be considered a psychological drama.