Trauma In Hamlet

William Shakespeare’s tragedy, Hamlet, tells the story of the Danish Prince Hamlet and his tragic attempt to seek revenge. Through Hamlet’s journey, Shakespeare addresses the psychological trauma that can be caused by internal turmoil. A dark personal desire mixed with a strong set of morals, tears at Hamlet’s sanity. This internal battle is capable of causing severe damage to a person’s psyche. War inside of one’s mind is able to create mass destruction, as the swords of conflicting thoughts strike at and cut one’s sanity into pieces. The catalyst of this violent struggle in Hamlet’s mind is his father’s death, more importantly, his murder. When an apparition visits Hamlet and divulges the dark secret that Hamlet’s uncle Claudius, the King of Denmark, has murdered Hamlet’s father to take the throne of Denmark,

Hamlet is set down the tragic path of vengeance. As a result of meeting the ghost, Hamlet’s personal desire for revenge is born, thus sparking the conflict that becomes a war between his need for revenge and his personal moral beliefs. Initially, as the war wages in Hamlet’s mind neither side gives much ground, which leads to inaction from Hamlet.

Consequently, this inaction is responsible for Hamlet’s moral decay because he chastises himself for his inaction as it is preventing him from reaching his personal goal of vengeance. Resultantly, this begins the decay of his moral compass and his values gradually begin to lose the war for Hamlet’s mind. Furthering the trauma in Hamlet’s life, is the impact that his father’s murder and his quest for revenge has on the relationships with those Hamlet loves the most. Finally, the moral army breaks under the trauma and the pressure from desire leading to terrible actions along Hamlet’s path towards avenging his father’s death; additionally, this seemingly newfound dark side uses its sword to shred Hamlet’s sanity, as the death of his morals signifies the death of his rationality. As a final result of Hamlet’s internal struggle, with his morals slain and his sanity in tatters, Hamlet is able to achieve his desire of revenge, but at an extreme cost. In the end, Hamlet shows that his morals are what is “rotten in the state of Denmark” (Shakespeare

59). Shakespeare narrates, through Hamlet, an argument against a concept introduced by Machiavelli, that the end does not justify the means. While one can achieve their goals through wretched means, these vile actions come at too great of a cost—the death of one’s psychological well-being.
Niccolo Machiavelli, a philosopher, came up with the concept that any act is justifiable so long as the desired end result is reached. This way of thinking is used to ease pain or damage caused by people’s morals, so that less pleasant personal desires can be achieved more easily. This idea, that “the ends justifies the means” (Machiavelli) is a concept deeply rooted inside Hamlet’s struggle to come to terms with his morals in the face of his need for revenge. While avenging his father is his desired end, Hamlet cannot stomach what that requires of him, cold-blooded murder. This means to an end is exceptionally effective at achieving the desired goal of revenge, but the means is a horrible crime. While Machiavelli’s idea would condone Hamlet’s action, Hamlet is thrown into the heat of an internal battle where he must justify his means somehow so that he may achieve his end desire. It is this struggle created by a need to justify his means that tears at Hamlet’s sanity. Moreover, Hamlet’s inability to come to terms with Machiavelli’s method of justifying actions sends him into a spiral of psychological decay.
The war in Hamlet’s mind is kick started with the news that his father’s death is in reality a murder, a murder that Hamlet needs to avenge. This horrific news coming from the mouth of his father’s ghost puts a massive weight on Hamlet’s psyche and sets into motion the internal struggle that results in Hamlet’s tragic death. The message from the phantom apparition creates a need for revenge in Hamlet that begins to wage war inside of Hamlet’s mind. Since his father, the king, is thought so highly of by Hamlet, the elder Hamlet’s death puts Hamlet’s psyche into a fragile state and blinds him with grief. The tragic revelation that a man he already loathes, Claudius, has committed the greatest crime of murder against someone closest to Hamlet’s heart, is the traumatic experience necessary to create a desire powerful enough to spark the conflict inside Hamlet’s mind. Furthermore, his father’s death has clouded his judgement with grief, which pushes aside reasonable thought, leaving Hamlet unable to question his desire—setting him up for tragedy. Consequently, the conflict sparked by trauma and fueled by a desire for revenge sets the stage for the rapid psychological decay in Hamlet. Hamlet is set down a dark path where “[he will] wipe his mind clean of all trivial facts and memories and preserve only [the] commandment” (Shakespeare 67) of the ghost. The trauma caused by such dramatically horrible news, corrodes Hamlet’s beliefs and values; moreover, his tunnel vision like struggle to meet the ghost’s request sets him on a quest for personal justice that just adds to Hamlet’s traumatic experience. The compiled trauma in Hamlet’s life, sparked by his father’s murder, sets the stage for Hamlet’s decay and results in his eventual tragedy. Furthermore, the news of his father’s murder pits Hamlet against both his enemies and himself and his sanity is caught in a battle that it will not survive.