Bipolar Disorder In Hamlet

In my video, I proved that Prince Hamlet had a diagnosable Bipolar Disorder but explained that I had some doubts on this theory. Of course, it is possible that Shakespeare wrote his character to be modeled off of this real-life illness, but I believe that Prince Hamlet is a character for a wider audience. The character is more than a display of a rare disorder; he serves as Shakespeare’s argument about the process of grief.

In 1969, Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross developed a psychological model for the process of grief. In this model, she outlines five stages, Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. While these stages vary from person to person, they represent a universal reaction to loss, like the loss of a father experienced by Hamlet and so many other people. At the start of the play, Hamlet is in the stage of Depression after his father’s death. He himself claims, “‘Seems,’ madam? Nay, it is. I know not ‘seems.’ 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother” (Hamlet 1.2.76-77). As the model suggests, Hamlet withdraws from his personal relationships, like that with his mother, and feels a lack of hope or control. “How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, Seem to me all

According to the model, “the intense emotion [of grief] is deflected from our vulnerable core, redirected and expressed instead as anger. The anger may be aimed at inanimate objects, complete strangers, friends or family.” Guided by the Ghost, Hamlet directs his new anger toward Gertrude and Claudius, saying “O most pernicious woman! O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain” (1.5.106-107). His need for vengeance consumes his relationships with others, as in his plot he shuns Ophelia, accuses Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and kills Polonius. By direction of the Ghost, Hamlet’s grief becomes a force for destruction rather than self-improvement, and his sense of nobility and honor is corrupted for