How Hamlet Fits The Bill

Hamlet of Anarchy Intro

Discuss Freud and Oedipus and how Hamlet fits the bill According to Freud, "Claudius represents, in flesh and blood, the embodiment of Hamlet's Oedipal urges" (Freud, 1900; Jones, 1976). Ernest Jones, in Hamlet and Oedipus, states:

In reality his uncle incorporates the deepest and most buried part of his own personality, so that he cannot kill him without also killing himself. This solution, one closely akin to what Freud has shown to be the motive of suicide in melancholia, is actually the one that Hamlet finally adopts... Only when he has made the final sacrifice and brought himself to the door of death is he free to fulfil his duty, to avenge his father, and to slay his other self -- his uncle.

http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/bierman/Elsinore/Freud/freudSolved.html

T.S. Eliot's Hamlet and His Problems (1888-1965) is destructive criticism; he conveys all the reasons he believes Hamlet to be a terrible play. He finds that it lacks ‘objective correlative’, as he says, which is a way of expressing emotion in art (Eliot, 1888-1965; Rahman, 2014). Eliot states that, “…external facts… must terminate in sensory experience, are given, and the emotion are evoked” (Eliot, 1888-1965). He believes that the play itself is the main issue and that the character Hamlet is secondary. Hamlet does have a tragic flaw; he is far too passionate and emotional. He is driven by this passion and emotion to the point that he becomes a

Revenge, infidelity, murder, coveting, lies, incest

Biblical According to the Bible, “19 The avenger of blood shall put the murderer to death; when the avenger comes upon the murderer, the avenger shall put the murderer to death” (Num. 35:19 New International Version). Hamlet is actually wrong for not slitting Claudius’ throat the moment he realizes he is guilty of murdering his father.

Repeats 5x In John Russel Brown’s essay Multiplicity of Meaning in the Last Moments of Hamlet (1966), he mentions the way Hamlet repeats certain words or phrases five times, “the effect and meaning of these simple words can change with each repetition… grow[ing] towards a climatic emotional effect.” Hamlet cannot ‘contain his thoughts’, Brown says. Most of the real action of this play occurs in Hamlet’s head (Brown, 1966).

The end of the play leaves me feeling much like reading Revelations in the Bible. The moral severity is heavier than cement shoes in the Gowanus Canal. Is Hamlet a hero, victim, or homicidal maniac? Is he a boy who lost his daddy? Or is he a weirdo that covets his mommy? I believe Shakespeare wanted us to see Hamlet as all of those things; it is how he made him so human—so real, damaged, and