The Oedipus Complex

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the main character, Hamlet, has a disinclination to kill his father’s murderer, who is also his uncle, Claudius. Two reasons Hamlet has such a hesitation is because he suffers from guilt and the Oedipus Complex. The Oedipus Complex, in short, is the “sexual desire towards the mother,” from a boy (Seitenlicht). The Oedipus Complex, in psychoanalytic theory, is a desire for sexual involvement with the parent of the opposite sex and a concomitant sense of rivalry with the parent of the same sex; a crucial stage in the normal developmental process. The term derives from the Theban hero, Oedipus, of Greek legend, who unknowingly slew his father and married his mother.

In Shakespeare’s, Hamlet, the entire plot was

Subsequently, the ghost of his father tells Hamlet that he was murdered by his brother, Claudius. Hamlet’s father tells him to seek revenge for his death. After having had his father’s ghost tell him to seek vengeance it seems logical for Hamlet to lose sanity and become thirsty for revenge. He did not seem to be incapable of putting his thoughts into action because he killed Polonius, Ophelia’s father, right in front of his mother without any hesitation. Only because Hamlet thought Polonius was spying on him and his mother. Hamlet also did not question sending Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their doom on their way to England once he found out they were to kill him. It takes Hamlet the entire play to finally kill Claudius. The readers of Hamlet, may have questioned why it took him so long to kill the guy who murdered his father and married his mother. To explain old Hamlet’s death; he was murdered by his brother, Claudius, who is Hamlet’s uncle. Claudius murdered old Hamlet simply to take the life that old Hamlet was living. He wanted to have the throne and wanted to marry Gertrude, his brother’s wife. According to Sigmund Freud, Hamlet saw a lot of himself in Claudius.

It is said that not only Hamlet’s guilt kept him from murdering Claudius in vengeance of old Hamlet’s death. Oedipus complex is stated to be a cause of Hamlet acting completely insane and is an explanation for the reason why Hamlet has such a hard time avenging his father’s murder. “It is simply Hamlet’s subconscious sexual desire for his mother that prevents him from doing the deed (Jones 70)” (Realizing Resonance). From the beginning of the play, Hamlet was upset with his mother because she married only a month after her husband had died. “Frailty, thy name is woman!—” (Hamlet 146). Hamlet called his mother weak and implied that she is a whore. Not only was Hamlet upset about his mother sleeping with another man after her husband’s death, Hamlet was angry that Claudius killed his father and then married his mother. Freud states, “Claudius did what is contained in Hamlet’s own repressed childhood wishes to possess his mother” (Seitenlicht). Hamlet then realized that he himself is not any better that Claudius, which he was to murder as ordered by his father’s ghost. This caused Hamlet to hesitate on seeking his revenge. Hamlet could not help but recognize himself in Claudius which is why it took so long for him to kill off Claudius in the play. It seemed as if Hamlet was more worried about his mother throughout the entire play than he was worried about killing