Theme Of Motivation In Hamlet

Motivation for Hamlet is very clear. A major theme of the play is avenging father’s deaths and his ghost father is definitely a driving force in his actions. Claudius, being the killer of Hamlet's father, is his main motivation. On top of that, Claudius was more than just the murderer. He married Hamlet’s mother, tried to kill Hamlet, and stands in the way of Hamlet's access to the crown of Denmark. That is large motivation for Hamlet to was to kill Claudius. There is also another theory on Hamlet's motivation that is a little more obscure. It is based on Sigmund Freud’s Oedipus Complex and the fact that Hamlet had a chance to kill Claudius that he did not take. The Oedipus Complex is, “...the childhood desire to sleep with the mother and to kill the

father… [This] illustrates a formative stage in each individual's psychosexual development... Such primal desires are, of course, quickly repressed but, even among the mentally sane, they will arise again in dreams or in literature” (Felluga). That may seem way too obscure to be related to Hamlet, but there are many scholars, including Freud, that have made the Oedipus Complex Hamlet’s motivation. Freud said,
The play is built up on Hamlet's hesitations over fulfilling the task of revenge that is assigned to him; but its text offers no reasons or motives for these hesitations and an immense variety of attempts at interpreting them have failed to produce a result. According to the view which was originated by Goethe and is still the prevailing one today, Hamlet represents the type of man whose power of direct action is paralyzed by and excessive development of his intellect. (Freud)
Freud believed that there was no explanation for Hamlet’s motivation and hesitation, so he decided to uncover it.

What he theorized is that Hamlet had the desire to kill his own father and Claudius took that from him along with his mother whom Hamlet had sexual desires for. Freud continues, “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”. Ernest Jones who wrote a book on the parallels between Hamlet and the Oedipus Complex, says, “ 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...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”. This theory has been highly debated since the time Freud came up with it, bur since there is no solid and factual proof, it is up to personal opinion on believing it or not. What critics do agree on, is that Hamlet’s father, whether psychosexual, revengeful or both, was his motivation throughout the

play.